


What Comes Next

by unfolded73



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Captain Cobra - Freeform, Depression, Drinking, F/M, Face-Sitting, Family Fluff, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Honeymoon, Hook Kink, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Post-Season/Series 06, Smut, Step-parents, The Jolly Roger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-08 18:41:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11087640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: They lived happily ever after. And then what happened?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Starts about a week after the final battle, and explores the highs and lows of newly married life between Emma and Killian as they deal with work, friends, and family as life in Storybrooke settles down somewhat.

When the insistent beeping of her alarm clock forced open her eyes, Emma was slightly surprised to find herself alone in bed. 

Of course Killian was an early riser by nature, she knew that, but every morning of the last week, she’d awoken to find him still in bed with her, sometimes watching her and waiting for her to wake up. It had been the first seven days of their marriage – okay, not technically, because there were those couple of days they’d been separated by realms _again_ , because of a curse _again_ – and they’d locked themselves in the house and resolved not to emerge for a week. It wasn’t a honeymoon, exactly; Killian was in the process of planning one of those, a real trip, maps and navigational charts spread out over a large desk in the room they couldn’t decide whether to call the study or the office or the den. But it had been blissfully free of emergencies, phone calls, shouts of _“Terrible news!”_ , or contact with anyone save a couple of delivery drivers when they hadn’t felt like cooking. 

In short, it had been heaven. 

Emma dragged herself out of bed and pulled on a robe, padding downstairs barefoot to find where her husband (and yes, that word still gave her a thrill even to think it – she wondered how long that would last) had gotten to. 

She came into the kitchen to find coffee brewing and Killian surveying the contents of the refrigerator with a pensive expression. 

“Whatcha doin’?” she asked him. 

He glanced over at her and smiled. “It’s just as well the week is up, love. We seem to be out of most everything.” He closed the refrigerator door. “A trip to the market is definitely in order.” 

Emma sidled up close to him, wrapping her arms around his firm (and sadly, clothed) torso. “Can you take care of that while I’m sheriffing?” 

He kissed her quickly on the lips. “Of course. I’ve also got to go spend some time working on the _Jolly Roger_. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen to her properly.” 

Well, she couldn’t just let that one go, she thought as she raised her eyebrows. “I know, you’ve been too busy seeing to _me_ properly.” 

His smile grew wider. “Indeed.” Their lips met again for a longer, if still relatively chaste, kiss. His hand and hook pressed against her back, holding her close. 

Emma hummed as Killian pressed his forehead against hers. “Are you sure we can’t just stay in bed a few more days?” she asked. “Work and chores and food are overrated.” 

His chuckle was a low rumble in her ears. “It was a lovely week.” He pulled back and looked at her with that sincere, lovestruck expression that made her knees weak. “The best of my life, truly.” 

“Best of your life, that’s pretty high praise.” She leaned up and rubbed her nose against his, shamelessly affectionate while still here in their intimate little bubble. “You’ve had a really long life.” 

“And I’ve had some good days to be sure, but never seven in a row where my only concern was my wife, and how many times I’d made her come.” 

Emma’s stomach swooped, and she tightened her grip on him. “You can continue to be concerned about that,” she said, her voice coming out a little breathless. 

His hand slid down, brushing over the curve of her ass. “Should I be concerned about it right now?” 

She groaned in frustration, even as she couldn’t resist thrusting forward with her hips, just a tiny bit. “I can’t, I told Dad I’d be in today. If I show up late, he’ll know exactly what I’ve been up to.” 

Killian smirked. “We’ve spent a week closeted in our house after getting married, love. I’m fairly certain he knows exactly what we’ve been up to.” 

~*~ 

_She opened her eyes to bright sunlight, and to the sensation of Killian’s warm, naked body pressed against her back._

_“Good morning, wife.”_

_“Good morning, husband,” she said, a giggling grin splitting her face. “So I didn’t dream it?” she said as she turned onto her back. “We really had an honest-to-God uninterrupted wedding night last night?”_

_He was smiling too. “Aye. And with any luck, we can make that last the week.” Killian started kissing his way across her collarbone, and she pressed her head back into the pillow to allow him more room. Everything gave the morning a slow and dreamlike quality: the warmth of the spring sunshine where it slanted across the bed; the chirping of birds in the tree outside their bedroom window; the wet, open exploration of Killian’s mouth as it moved over her body. Emma rubbed her thighs together, feeling a flare of fresh arousal. If last night had been any indication, she’d be lucky if she was able to walk by the end of the week._

_“I love the sunlight on your skin,” Killian murmured, his hand tracing patterns over her belly as he brushed his nose under one of her breasts. “It glows like ivory.”_

_“Very poetic for so early in the morning,” she said, her eyes still closed._

_He didn’t answer, just moved the blankets aside and positioned himself between her legs. Emma let him move her limbs the way he wanted, lying there relaxed and pliant. She felt the brush of his leg hair against the tender skin of her inner thighs, and sighed as his fingers made contact with her wet, sensitive flesh._

_“May I?” he asked, perhaps interpreting her dreamy passivity as a lack of interest._

_“Yes,” she sighed out, spreading her legs wider, wanting him to do with her as he wanted. Wanting him to possess her utterly._

_Gentle strokes and the slow-building pleasure they engendered made her writhe on the sheets, craving more. And he knew without asking that she didn’t need a lot of build-up, her body still tingling from the memory of the night before, and neither did he, she realized as he shifted forward and positioned himself and thrust inside her in one smooth motion._

_Emma made a noise of approval, opening her eyes finally to see him above her, glorious in the morning sun. She felt so wet and soft and well-fucked, closed her eyes once more against the delicious pleasure as he started his slow thrusts. She couldn’t even bring herself to lift her arms from the bed, she was so heavy and hazy, so full of him. In spite of the slowness, even though she wasn’t trying, wasn’t urging herself toward it, her body responded without effort. She felt her climax deep inside, wondered if he could feel it too, pulsing against his skin. He groaned, gritting his teeth as he found his own peak. Her whole body shuddered as he withdrew, as she melted deeper into the bed._

_“So, my wife. Breakfast?”_

~*~ 

“Emma, did you hear me?” 

She’d been staring at the copy machine, and she looked up into her father’s indulgent face. “Huh?” 

“Where did I lose you?” he asked, and she hoped her cheeks weren’t too flushed, that it wasn’t too obvious that she’d been swimming in filthy memories while she tried to photocopy a form. 

“Uh…” She cast her mind back. “Somewhere around bar fight at the Rabbit Hole?” 

David rolled his eyes. “I stopped talking about that five minutes ago. I said, your mom and I are buying a house.” 

Emma startled at that, her finger pressing an extra digit inadvertently before pushing the big green start button. _Shit_ , she thought, quickly hitting cancel before she had 33 copies of an arrest report that she wanted 3 copies of. “A house? When?” 

“Pretty much right away,” he said, grinning. “We found the perfect place for us, and it’s past time we got out of that loft.” He held his phone out, and Emma could make out a picturesque white house on the screen. 

“Where is it?” 

“It’s on the edge of town. On a lot of land. There’s even a barn,” he said, swiping his finger to show her another picture. 

“Wow, a _barn_.” She smiled faintly. Not that she didn’t think her parents needed to move; they definitely needed more space. It had been sort of ridiculous, her and Killian and their big white-picket-fence house, and her parents in the same apartment. Still, it was a big change, and it made her unaccountably anxious. “I’m really happy for you guys.” 

“Good, so you can help us move this weekend,” he said, patting her on the back. 

Emma groaned. “Really? You can’t hire people for that?” 

“Well, Storybrooke doesn’t have a moving company. We are going to pay the dwarves to help, if that matters. But we could use a hand with Neal during the whole process, and we’ve imposed on Granny enough lately.” 

“Okay, okay, fine. We’ll be there,” she picked up her copies, taking them back into her office. 

“Oh, and speaking of Granny,” David said, trailing behind her, “she had a break-in on Thursday.” 

Emma halted in her doorway, swinging back around. “What?” 

“Somebody broke into the diner Thursday. Took some money from the cash register.” He dug around on his desk, producing a paper. “Here, I took down her report.” 

“Okay, I’ll look into it,” she said, accepting the report filled out in David’s messy scrawl. “Is she okay?” 

“Yeah, just threatening to sit up at night and put a crossbow bolt through anyone who tries anything like that again.” 

“Sounds like Granny,” she said, laughing. 

“So, what’s Killian up to today?” he asked. 

“Grocery shopping and swabbing the decks on his ship, or something like that. Whatever he does when he putters around on the _Jolly_.” 

“He told me before the wedding he wanted to take the ship out with you for a real honeymoon. Is that still in the works?” 

Emma flopped into her desk chair, winced, and tried to readjust her position as unobtrusively as possible while her father watched her from the doorway. “Oh yeah, he’s got nautical charts and he does… whatever – math, I guess? He’s got a whole plan.” 

David’s brow wrinkled. “You don’t sound excited.” 

“I’m excited, I’m just… I don’t know. It seems risky, leaving Storybrooke. What if something happens while we’re gone?” 

He folded his arms across his chest. “Then we’ll handle it. It’s time for you to enjoy your life, Emma. No more sacrifices for everyone else.” 

She didn’t respond to that, just made motions like she had important things to do, like reading the report on the break-in at Granny’s. Fortunately for her the phone rang, and with a sigh her father went to answer it. 

The morning passed relatively uneventfully, and when lunchtime came, Emma found herself craving one of Granny’s perfect grilled cheese sandwiches. 

“Emma!” Granny called out when she stepped inside the diner. “I was starting to wonder if you and the pirate would ever come up for air.”

A few smirks and surreptitious glances from the patrons around Granny’s confirmed that yes, everyone had heard that. Fantastic.

Emma walked over to the counter. “What’s this I hear about a break-in, Granny?”

“Never mind that right now; how’s married life?”

Trying not to show impatience, Emma sighed. “It’s wonderful. My nine-day-old marriage is wonderful, thank you for asking. Now about the break-in?” 

She waved a hand dismissively. “I already reported it to your father while you were taking time off.” 

“Yes, you did, and now I want to follow up and see if you’ve noticed anything else missing, or if anything else suspicious has happened since last Thursday.” She sat down on one of the stools at the counter. “Also I wanted a grilled cheese.” 

“Onion rings?” Granny asked, producing her pad from her apron and a pen from somewhere within her hair. 

“You know it.” 

“I was starting to wonder how you were surviving without my cooking, Emma. I hope that pirate kept you well-fed.” 

~*~ 

_“Did you do all this?”_

_Emma walked down the porch stairs into the backyard, the twinkling of votive candles lighting her way to the late-evening picnic that awaited. While she’d been taking a bath, he’d been busy, setting out an array of fruits and cheeses and a bottle of wine for them on a blanket behind the house. He’d also brought practically every decorative pillow they owned outside, giving the whole thing a slightly exotic quality._

_“No, your_ other _husband did,” he said, reclining on his elbow and popping a grape into his mouth._

_“Oh, shush,” she responded, collapsing next to him on the blanket and going straight for the cheese. “God, I’m starving all of a sudden. And I don’t know why, all I’ve done today is read and sleep and fuck.”_

_“A perfect use of your time, as far as I’m concerned.” He indicated the privacy hedge with a nod of his head. “I don’t suppose you’d mind using your magic to give us a little more solitude from the outside world, would you, love?”_

_She grinned, raising her hands and feeling the burn of her magic as she summoned it from within. It had never been easier, the struggles and trembling false starts with her powers a distant memory. “Why, what else are you planning to do out here, pirate?”_

_Eventually the food was shoved aside so that they could lie next to each other, kissing devolving into hands roaming, sliding beneath unbuttoned waistbands, both of them grasping and moaning with renewed desire. The more she had of him, the more she wanted him, it seemed. Emma ended up straddling Killian’s legs, his jeans pulled down just far enough as she alternatingly used her hand and mouth to bring him to a shattering orgasm._

_He tumbled her onto the blanket, mouth fusing to hers as he slid his hand underneath her underwear. They both groaned at how wet she was, at the slick drag of his fingers inside her. She kissed him desperately, wanting his mouth on her, but at the same time not wanting him to stop kissing her. Her hands fluttered against his face, in his hair, her hips rising in time with his hand. She fell over the edge incredibly fast, flushed and sweating and almost laughing as she came down._

_Emma looked up at the sky, stars scattered across the dark canvas. She imagined for a moment that she was falling up into it, Killian’s arm flung across her abdomen the only thing anchoring her to the earth._

~*~ 

“One thing I forgot to mention,” Granny said as she dropped off Emma’s check. Emma blinked her eyes, bringing herself back to the present. 

“What’s that?”

“There was one other thing that was missing, besides the money. Do you remember that little glass wolf of Ruby’s?” 

“Sure, I think so,” Emma said as she pulled out her wallet. 

“I had it on top of the register there, and it disappeared as well.” Granny furrowed her brow. “When you catch the thieves, I want to have a little word with them.” 

“Got it,” she said absently, handing over some cash. “As soon as we get any leads, we’ll let you know.” 

Next on the agenda was a meeting at Regina’s office. Emma glanced at the time on her phone as she left the diner, hurrying to her car and speeding (just a little) over to city hall so as not to be late. 

“Hey, I love the new door,” she said, admiring the new lettering which spelled out _Regina Mills, Queen_ on the glass. 

“Thanks,” Regina said, beckoning her in, “and welcome back.”

“I wasn’t really _gone_ , I was just–” 

“I don’t need any details,” Regina responded quickly, holding her hand up as she sat behind her desk. “I thought it would be a good idea, assuming we’re in for some peace and quiet for a while,–” 

“Don’t jinx it, Regina.” 

“–that we meet on a regular basis in a professional arena, just to stay on the same page regarding town improvements, any issues you’re having with crime that the mayor’s office can help with, that sort of thing. We’ve spent too long struggling to keep up with the next crisis, barely keeping our heads above water. I’m hoping we can finally focus on the future. Make things better around here.” 

Emma nodded. “I think that’s a great idea; I’m totally on board. Like, maybe we could have some town hall meetings, take it directly to the people to find out what they need? I always thought–” 

“All right, let’s not go overboard,” Regina muttered. 

Emma smirked. “I know it says ‘Queen’ on the door, but you still answer to the town. Hearing from the residents of Storybrooke can only help us.” 

“Fine, fine.” She put her chin on her hand, arching an eyebrow. “So, Henry’s planning to be over at your place this week. I assume that’s still all right? You don’t need to hose down the kitchen with bleach first?” 

Emma laughed, hoping her facial expression wasn’t giving her away. “We didn’t have sex in the kitchen, don’t worry.” 

~*~ 

_The points of her hipbones collided somewhat painfully with the edge of the counter as Killian pressed against her from behind. Emma reached out, clutching at the cabinet in front of her._

_“Fuck,” he grated, his hook dragging along her flank over her thin robe. “I need you.”_

_She would have laughed, because he’d had her not two hours ago in their bed, except she was feeling just as desperate for him as he seemed to be feeling for her, both of them completely insatiable. Emma pressed her ass back against his erection, enjoying the choked off sound from the back of his throat._

_A minute later he had her bent over the kitchen table, his palm gentle against her spine before he took his cock in hand and pushed inside her. Emma hissed at the burn of it; it felt good but it also hurt, because she didn’t think she’d ever had so much sex in her life, and–_

_He thrust again, and she grimaced._

_“Killian, stop.”_

_He did, immediately. “What’s wrong, love?”_

_She laughed uneasily, levering herself up as he pulled out, her robe falling back over her ass from where he had lifted it out of the way. “Sorry, I’m just a little sore, after…” Her mind flashed back to that morning, how she’d reached back and braced her arm against the headboard, and his glorious snarl as he drove into her over and over, their bodies meeting in a harsh slap with every powerful thrust of his hips._

_Killian cradled her close, his expression remorseful. “I’m so sorry, darling, I shouldn’t’ve–”_

_“No, it’s not your fault, and we definitely haven’t done anything I didn’t want to do, believe me. I think we’ve probably just reached my limit for fucking right now.” She nuzzled into his neck, a frisson of desire making her groan. “And I’m still horny as fuck, I just can’t–”_

_“Lay back, love. Let me see to you.” His voice was deep and filled with promise._

_She raised an eyebrow, but only hesitated a moment before sitting on their sturdy kitchen table, tilting backward until she was resting on her elbows. Killian unknotted her robe, parting the fabric, and then got down on his knees. Wrapping his arms around her legs, he pulled her to the edge of the table._

_“You okay?” he said, his breath hot against her thigh._

_“Yeah.”_

_His tongue was gentle and coaxing on her overused skin, slow licks designed to soothe and inflame all at once. He didn’t rush her, no matter how desperate for release he had been a moment ago, his focus now was only on her and her needs. She felt every wet trace and flutter over her skin, every vibration of his moans as he tasted her. Forcing herself to keep her eyes open, she watched as he pleasured her. Her orgasm (and she had honestly lost count of how many times he’d made her come in the last few days) was a light, trembling thing, but no less wonderful for all that. He lingered, kissing her over and over between her legs until she reached down and stopped him, pulling him to his feet._

_Emma wrapped her arms and legs around him, kissing him while his mouth and beard were still wet from her body._

_“God, I’ve developed such a kink for tasting myself on your mouth,” she mumbled against his lips between kisses. “You’ve ruined me.” Reaching down, she closed her fist around his cock and started a rhythm of long, slow strokes._

_The look he gave her was sinful, and she could tell he was about to speak filth even before he opened his mouth. “Get on your knees, love, and you can taste yourself on my cock.”_

_Emma bit her lip, winked at him, and did as he asked._

~*~ 

She was exhausted when she dragged herself through the front door that evening. As she set her keys in the bowl in the entryway and kicked off her shoes, she looked around. The front room and kitchen were spotless, and she could smell something cooking for dinner in the oven. Henry and Killian were sitting at the kitchen table (which yes, she had cleaned), Henry working on homework and Killian reading a book.

 _My family_ , she thought happily. _At the end of the day I get to come home to my family._

“Hello, darling,” Killian said, walking over to greet her with a kiss. “How was your day?” 

“Tiring. How was yours?” 

“Fine, but I missed you,” he answered. 

“I missed you, too,” she whispered so that Henry wouldn’t overhear. “It didn’t matter what I was doing, I couldn’t stop thinking about the past few days.” 

“Nor I,” he admitted with a sweet smile. “Fortunately, though our days may sometimes be spent apart, we can spend every night together for the rest of our lives.” 

Henry groaned from over at the table, pointedly not turning around. “The honeymoon’s over, guys.” 

“Never,” Emma said.


	2. Chapter 2

“Nice gig you’ve got here,” Killian said, leaning against the doorway of the empty room where Emma was sitting on the hardwood floor with her baby brother. Neal squealed and threw his stuffed bear for approximately the fiftieth time, and Emma leaned backwards to grab it and hand it to him again. This little game had kept him happily entertained for going on half an hour now. 

“Hey, my job is very important. I keep Neal occupied and out of the way while you big strong men carry boxes.” As promised, they were helping her parents move into the new house, which their meager possessions from the loft were not coming anywhere close to filling. Given her own relatively large house and both her and Killian’s tendency to travel light, Emma could sympathize. 

Killian snorted and lifted a water bottle to his mouth to drink. Emma watched his throat work, the way it glistened with sweat from his exertions. He’d chosen to forgo a jacket or vest, and had rolled his sleeves up to the elbow, exposing his brace on one side and his bare forearm on the other. He looked absolutely delicious. 

“Seriously, though, we can trade off if you want,” she offered.

“No need; we’re almost done.” Neal threw his bear again, then pitched himself over onto his hands and crawled after it, babbling the whole time. “The lad there isn’t going to know what to do with all this space.” 

“I know.” She stood up and stretched out her back. “It’s a little bit sad, them not being at the loft anymore. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this house is great, but I’ll still miss that old place. A lot of stuff happened there.” 

“Why, Swan, I didn’t think you were so sentimental,” he said, sidling up to her. Emma continued to stare at the sweat in the hollow of his throat. 

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, you picked me up for our first date there. You’re not a little bit sentimental about it?” 

“No, I am. I have very fond memories of wooing you in that apartment.” He reached for her, stroking his hook up and down her arm, making her skin break out in goosebumps. “But the memories are ours no matter what happens to the place.” 

Emma wrapped her arms around him, his shirt damp with sweat under her palms. “That’s true.” She leaned in close, anticipating the saltiness of his skin on her tongue, but before she could act there was a plaintive cry behind her. 

Neal seemed to have crawled until he’d bumped into the wall, and now he sat whimpering under one of the windows. With a sigh, Emma walked over and scooped her baby brother into her arms. 

“Oh, here you guys are,” Snow said from the doorway. “David’s going to order some pizzas for everyone. Any preferences?” 

“Killian hates pepperoni, loves anchovies, and likes pretty much everything else. Even pineapple,” Emma said as she bounced Neal on her hip to soothe him. 

“There’s nothing wrong with pineapple on a pizza, Swan–” 

“It’s an abomination, Killian.” 

Snow smiled at them both indulgently. “Okay, well, everything’s unloaded from the truck, and you can help yourselves to beer from the fridge.” 

“Mamamamama,” Neal whined, reaching for Snow, who accepted him from Emma’s arms automatically, before she turned and headed to the kitchen. 

“I’ll just go check and see if your father needs anything else done,” Killian said, brushing his lips against Emma’s cheek before he moved off toward another part of the house. 

Snow put Neal in his high chair and started peeling a banana and feeding it to him in little pieces. “I’ll admit, I cried when we locked up the old apartment for the last time,” she said. “So many memories.” 

“We were just talking about that,” Emma said, sitting on one of her mother’s old stools. This new kitchen didn’t have anything resembling a breakfast bar, so the stools seemed orphaned and out-of-place. 

“I’ve been so busy with the move, I haven’t even had a chance to check in with you lately. How’s everything going?” 

Emma watched as Neal squished banana between his fingers, opening his hand against his face and getting some fraction of the fruit into his mouth. “It’s fine.” 

Snow regarded her for a few seconds. “Are you sure?” 

Sighing heavily, Emma stood up again, feeling fidgety. “It honestly _is_ fine, I’m not lying about that. It’s just… have you ever heard of people who think they’re going to die of cancer and then go into remission, that they get depressed afterwards? It’s almost like, I spent so long preparing myself for the worst, for the prophecy of my death, for losing the final battle, that now that we’ve won, and now that life has sort of settled into a pattern, I feel… strange. Empty, I guess.” 

“Oh, sweetie, I’ve gotta think that’s normal after everything you went through.” 

Emma bit her lip, feeling the sudden urge to cry. “But I feel guilty for not being happier. I have everything I wanted. A husband that I love so much, and family, and a job I like and a nice house. Being unsatisfied when I have all of that is so _stupid_.” 

“You went through a trauma, Emma. Several of them. I mean, did you and Killian have any time at all to process his dying and being resurrected before the next crisis hit?” Snow put another piece of banana on Neal’s tray. 

“Not really.” 

“And then right on the heels of that, you get told that you’re destined to die. And that the final battle is coming. All the while you and Killian are going through so many important changes in your relationship, moving in together, getting engaged–” 

“Twice,” Emma added. 

“ _Twice_ ,” Snow agreed. “And there was our sleeping curse, and then you almost lost him again, and then the wedding, getting separated again, the battle, Gideon stabbing you… Emma, if you weren’t reeling from all of that, you wouldn’t be human.” 

Emma reached back and tightened her ponytail. “Okay, when you put it like that…” 

Snow gave her a sympathetic smile. “I guess your week off wasn’t as idyllic as I hoped it was.” 

“No, it was.” Emma smiled, her cheeks heating. “But I think I was distracting myself with sex.” 

Snow’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Actually, yeah, that makes sense. It’s hormones.” 

“What?” 

“There’s a hormone they give you in the hospital to induce labor, but it’s also released naturally when nursing, and during, you know. Orgasm. And one of the things it does is give you a feeling of well-being. So in a way, you were self-medicating.” 

“Huh.” Emma frowned. “How do you know about that?” 

Snow shrugged. “It was in a baby book, I think. The point is, you have every right to feel the way you’re feeling. You shouldn’t feel guilty about it or try to hide it.” 

“Pizza’s on the way,” David announced as he and Killian joined them in the kitchen. 

Killian positioned himself behind Emma’s stool, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. 

David got another beer out of the fridge and turned to her. “Listen, while we’re waiting, Emma, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, and now is probably as good a time as any.” 

“Actually, David–” Snow started, but he cut her off. 

“This isn’t going to just be a new house for us, it’s going to be a whole new lifestyle. I’d like to try my hand at farming again, like my father did.” Emma glanced back at Killian, but he was looking at the floor. “Emma, when I started working for the sheriff’s department, it was a matter of necessity because you were trapped in the Enchanted Forest. And I’ve loved working with you, but it’s never been what I’ve wanted to do forever.” 

Her heart plummeted. “You’re leaving,” she said flatly. 

“Only once you find a new deputy; I’m not going to leave you in the lurch. And when you and Killian take that honeymoon trip, I can fill in for you, so don’t worry about that.” 

Emma took a shaky breath and stood, picking up Neal’s dropped sippy cup from the floor to give herself something to do. “Yeah, I mean, I get it…” 

An apology for David’s poorly-timed announcement was plain on Snow’s face even as she tried to smile. “We had an idea, though, of someone who might want to take over as sheriff’s deputy.” 

“Yeah, we thought maybe Killian might be interested,” David said. 

Killian looked up from his beer, surprised. “What, me? In law enforcement? You’re joking.” 

Emma looked at him, considering. She knew he wouldn’t think so, but he’d actually be great at it, she thought. 

“Much as the idea of supporting Emma in her job is appealing,” Killian went on, “I’m a pirate.” 

“Yeah, but kind of in name only,” David said. “You’re also the prince consort.” 

“Didn’t I say never to call me that, mate?” Killian scratched behind his ear. 

“The people of Storybrooke have seen you fighting at Emma’s side; they know you’re a hero, and that you’ve worked to protect them on multiple occasions,” Snow said. “I think it’s a perfect fit.” 

“I… agree,” Emma said. “That is, if you want to do it.” 

“The only downside I see is that the two of you might get sick of each other, spending so much time together,” Snow said as she wiped the banana off of Neal’s face and hands with a damp towel. 

“Never,” Killian proclaimed, coming over and putting his arm around Emma. “After all the times we’ve been separated against our will, I can’t think of anything that would make me happier than being at your side every day.” He dropped his voice. “But are you certain you want me as your deputy, love?” 

Emma felt a smile blooming on her face. “Yeah, I’m sure. I think you’d make a great deputy.” She put her arm around his lower back, her other hand drifting to his chest as it so often did. “Plus, we can make out in the supply closet.” 

~*~ 

“Yeah, but we could get a car with an attachment on the steering wheel for your hook,” Emma was saying as they walked toward the Bug. “Or you could get a special prosthetic for driving. Anything you want.” 

David had spent a few more days at the station, ostensibly training Killian although mostly it looked like they were goofing off any time Emma came upon them. She wasn’t sure how she felt about her husband and her father being such good friends; it seemed a good thing on the surface, but she couldn’t help thinking it was gonna get her in trouble one of these days. 

Now they were going out on patrol together for the first time, and Emma was feeling pretty happy, all things considered. Even so, the double whammy of her parents moving to the edge of town and then her father quitting the sheriff’s department still stung, when she thought too hard about it. She knew intellectually that it was all for the best, but the lost little girl inside her couldn’t help but feel abandoned. 

Killian, with his smile and his workplace-inappropriate wandering hand, provided a welcome distraction. 

“And you’re going to teach me to pilot an automobile?” he said as he opened the passenger door to her car. 

“Sure, I could. Or Dad probably could.” She sat down in the driver’s seat and felt something in her pocket poking her in the leg. “Oh, I almost forgot!” she said, lifting her hips and digging in the pocket of her jeans while Killian sat beside her and watched with interest. Emma pulled out the deputy’s badge, the very one that she’d worn when she first worked for Graham, and held it up. “I found this for you.” 

Killian eyed it with discomfort. While he seemed pleased to be working with her, he still shied away from the idea of himself as an officer of the law. After so many years of ignoring the law, she supposed that made sense. She’d felt that way herself at first. 

“Here,” she said, unfastening the clasp and leaning over. “Can I pin it on you?” 

“Be my guest, love.” 

Emma put the pin through the fabric of Killian’s vest, careful not to prick him with it. “That’s ‘Sheriff’ to you, Deputy,” she said, grinning. 

When she was done, he looked down at the shiny badge and adjusted it with his fingers. “So, I’m your deputy,” he said, smiling. “Does that carry over into the bedroom, darling? Because I’ll happily take orders from you there as well.” 

Emma rolled her eyes, grinning in spite of herself. “We should probably try to be marginally professional while we’re at work, Killian.” 

“Oh, but where’s the fun in that?” 

“Sh.. sheriff, this is Dispatch, over,” came a voice from the radio. 

It sounded like Bashful working the dispatch desk, she thought as she picked up the mouthpiece and pressed the button. “This is Sheriff Swan.” 

“A robbery was reported at 427 Spruce Street. Victim’s name is Moe French,” Bashful reported. “O…over.” 

“Got it; we’re on our way.” She put the radio mouthpiece down, pointing to the bubble light she kept in the Bug for just this purpose. “Can you put the light out for me?” 

“Another break-in, like at Granny’s?” he asked as he reached out of the car window and affixed the light to the top of the car. 

“Could be,” Emma said, pulling out of her parking space and making a U-turn on Main Street to head toward Belle’s father’s shop. They arrived at _Game of Thorns_ after only a few minutes. “Look at this, our first case together,” she said, grinning at Killian.

“Aye.” He held the door to the flower shop open for her. “After you, Sheriff.” 

Moe sat behind the counter, his face red with anger. “I came in this morning to find the lock on the back door broken, and all the cash in the register gone,” he said to them without greeting or preamble. “The crime rate in this town is getting out of control, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it, Sheriff.” 

“Killian, why don’t you go check out the back door?” Emma said, trying to maintain her cool in the face of Moe’s anger. Killian shot her a look that asked, _are you sure?_ She nodded, and he went. 

“Anything else missing other than the cash?” she asked, pulling out a notepad. 

“Isn’t that enough?” he shouted, and then seemed to wilt a little. “I apologize; I’m just upset.” 

“I understand,” she said evenly. 

“I didn’t notice anything else missing. There were a couple of overturned vases,” he said, pointing to a small mess next to the doorway to the back of the shop, “but not like the place had been torn apart.” 

“More like the thief was just clumsy,” Emma mused. 

“The back door was forced open; the lock wasn’t picked.” Killian shook his head. “No finesse at all with these thieves.” 

“Yeah, it was the same at Granny’s. Could be a pattern,” she said. “You aren’t missing any trinkets, are you, Moe? Anything small you had around here that the thief might take as a souvenir?” 

He looked around and shrugged. “Not that I can tell.” 

“If anything comes to mind, let us know. We may be dealing with the same person who robbed Granny’s a couple of weeks ago,” she said. “We’ll check for any fingerprints and any other evidence as soon as I’m done taking your statement. I assure you, we’ll do everything we can to find who did this.” 

Moe deflated further. “I didn’t mean to insult you, Sheriff. I’m just worried about… personal things.” His eyes went to Killian. “Have you spoken to my daughter lately? You know she went back to him?” 

Killian looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Aye, I’m aware.” 

“Well, can’t you _do_ something? I know you helped her before, when she left him. I know she’d listen to you,” Moe said. 

“They just went through a massive ordeal with Gideon,” Emma said. “I think Belle and Gold are probably focused on the fact that they got their baby back, and not so much on their past, or maybe on their relationship at all.” Not that she knew for sure, no one had really seen either of them since the final battle, but Snow had heard from Belle that they were fine and were spending some time alone together as a family. 

“He’s going to hurt her again. Or he’ll hurt my grandson,” Moe said, pain evident in his voice. “He may have the best of intentions, he may even love her, but he’s the Dark One. The Black Fairy was his mother. Everything he touches, he’ll eventually pollute with that darkness.” 

Emma shared a look with Killian, remembering her own time as the Dark One. Remembering his. She couldn’t very well argue with what Moe was saying, given their own experiences with the corrupting influence of that darkness. 

“Belle is a grown woman,” Killian said. “If she comes to me, of course I will always do anything within my power to help her. We both will. But it’s not my place to try to break up another couple’s marriage, no matter my personal feelings.” 

Moe grimaced, his fist on the counter clenched so hard his knuckles were white. “How many times in one lifetime must a man mourn the loss of his only daughter?” 

~*~ 

“Moe French was right,” Killian said as he was getting undressed for bed several days later. 

Snow had at first suggested a re-do of their wedding reception, since it had been cut so short by the Black Fairy’s curse, but Emma immediately vetoed that idea. The last thing she had wanted to deal with, given her fragile emotional state lately, was a huge party. She’d talked her mother down to a small dinner party at Granny’s with just family invited. And due in part to the fact that Gold was Henry’s grandfather (but likely due in larger part to Snow wanting to see baby Gideon for herself), Belle and Gold had been invited. Everyone had been cordial, and Emma had thought the evening had gone very well – or as well as a dinner party with three babies at it could possibly go – so she was surprised with Killian’s statement. 

“About Belle?” she asked as she took out her earrings. “Why would you say that? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so happy." 

Killian’s expression was dark. “They’re like lambs, Belle and Gideon, unaware that they’re living with a wolf.” 

“Okay, one, you’re committed to crocodile; you can’t change animals now. Two, I’m glad Ruby’s not around to hear you bad-mouthing wolves that way. And three, Belle’s not a lamb. She knows exactly what he’s capable of.” 

Killian didn’t acknowledge her witty reply (if she did say so herself). “You didn’t see him do to her what I saw, back when she was staying on my ship. As long as everything’s going his way, he’s fine. He’s probably a model husband. But as soon as things don’t go his way, he’ll turn on her.” 

All of the half-hearted argument drained out of her. “Yeah. I know.” Emma walked into their en-suite bathroom and closed the door. She didn’t know what else she could say. She knew Killian was probably right, but she also didn’t know what they could do about it. With a heavy sigh, she pulled her underwear down and sat on the toilet to pee. 

“And if she tries to leave him again with that child?” Killian said, opening the door to the bathroom and walking in. “He’ll never allow that to happen. He’ll do everything in his power to control her and keep her from leaving.” 

“Babe, I’m on the toilet.” 

He looked at her and blinked. “Oh. Sorry.” 

“So maybe don’t come barging into the bathroom when I’m on the toilet,” she grumbled, wiping herself, standing, and pulling her underwear up. 

“My apologies, love.” 

“It’s okay.” She flushed, and then bumped his hip with hers so that she could get in front of the sink to wash her hands. “So are you going to say something to her? What about the stuff you said to Moe? That she’s a grown woman? That’s still true.” 

He looked at himself in the mirror and wiped his hand over his face. “I know. But I could talk to her. Not to try to talk her into anything, but just to check on how she’s doing, and to make it clear that we’re here if she ever needs us.” 

Emma leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re a good friend, you know that?” 

One side of his mouth quirked up in a half-smile. 

“And a good husband.” She kissed his cheek again before grabbing her toothbrush. “Even when you do walk in on me peeing.” 

Killian pulled her into a hug, tickling her side and making her squirm and huff against his bare chest. “I’m intimately acquainted with every inch of your body, darling. Seeing you relieving yourself is no matter.” 

“Yeah, but you should only associate my body with fun, sexy stuff, not gross, bathroom stuff.” She wrinkled her nose. 

“Emma, I plan to spend the rest of my life with you.” 

She smiled. “Yeah, same.” 

“And I’m hoping that will be a good fifty years or more, aye? So I imagine there will be some gross stuff in that time, bathroom and otherwise.” 

She kissed him on the lips. “See? You’re a good husband.” 

He dragged his hand around to her ass and squeezed. “And for the record, if your body were any more fun and sexy, I’d have perished by now.” 

Emma giggled, and pulled his head down to kiss him thoroughly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some anti-Rumple/anti-Rumbelle opinions expressed in this chapter.

Killian shifted the box he was carrying from one hip to the other and knocked on the door to the Gold house. He glanced through the beveled glass beside the door, worrying that his knock hadn’t been heard, but afraid to ring the bell lest he wake up Gideon. Then there was a blur of movement and he shifted back, waiting for the door to open.

Belle smiled brightly at him. “Killian, I’m so glad you called.”

“Are you sure this is a good time?” He shifted the box in his grip again.

“It’s perfect; I just put Gideon down for a nap. Come in.” He followed her through the foyer to the kitchen. “Can I get you some coffee?” she asked.

“I’m fine, love, thanks.” He set the box down on the counter. “As I said when I called, I just wanted to drop off these things you left on board the _Jolly Roger_.”

“I appreciate that.”

“How are you? How’s motherhood?” He looped his thumb in his belt, rocking on his feet.

“It’s wonderful,” she said, her eyes twinkling with happiness. “When I think of how bad everything was just a few weeks ago, and now… I’m just so grateful. And I can never repay Emma for what she did for us, for Gideon.”

Killian squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden image of his wife impaled on a sword. While it had only lasted a handful of seconds, those seconds had been amongst the worst of his life. The fact that Rumpelstiltskin had been the indirect cause of them was something he was trying not to think about; he was trying to focus on the positive, but he could only do that by pushing the events of that night, of that battle, out of his mind.

“She’s the Savior,” he said, his words clipped. “It’s what she does.”

“Well, I feel so lucky. Please tell her that if there’s ever anything we can do to help her, all she has to do is ask.”

Killian glanced around at the house, this house that Belle lived in with Rumpelstiltskin and their child. “More importantly, love, if you ever need _our_ help…” He hesitated and sighed. “If there’s ever anything we can do to… to ensure your or Gideon’s safety, to protect you, please know that we will be there. No questions asked.”

She laughed uncomfortably. “That’s a rather ominous offer,” she said, her face falling. “You’re talking about Rumple. You mean if I ever need your protection against Rumple.”

“Given everything that’s happened in the past, you can’t blame me for worrying.”

Belle shook her head sadly. “I know that you’ll never trust him, with what happened with you and Milah, but—”

“This isn’t about the ancient history between us,” he said. Although, of course, on some level it was and always would be. “This is about what I watched him do to you when you were trying to get away from him. Trapping you on my ship. Threatening you so that you felt your only recourse was to send your own child away.”

“And that was a mistake, what I did. He was never going to harm Gideon. He did everything he could to _protect_ Gideon. I’ve seen that now with my own eyes.”

“He’s still the Dark One, Belle,” he said before he could stop himself. He hadn’t come here to do this, hadn’t come here to argue with her, but hearing her defend the Crocodile made him furious. 

“Emma was the Dark One once, and that didn’t stop you from loving her,” she argued.

“No, but it did stop us from having anything resembling a healthy relationship, and it didn’t stop her from making terrible choices in the interest of protecting me,” he said. “Don’t you see? The darkness made us do horrible things. Me especially, but even Emma couldn’t resist its pull.”

“Rumple has been the Dark One for hundreds of years,” Belle said. “He doesn’t fall prey to it in the same way that you did. I’ve seen him overcome it. I’ve seen him make choices not because of the darkness, but to protect his family.” 

“I’m not saying he’s not capable of doing good things, or even that he doesn’t love you. I know he loves you, and probably doesn’t intend to hurt you. But what happens if he uses his powers against someone else you care about, and you challenge him? What then?” He clenched his fist at his side, anger at the idea that the Crocodile might hurt his family again someday flooding his system.

Belle laughed bitterly, turning away from him. “I can’t believe you’re trying to break up my marriage when I’m trying to make it work, for my sake and for the sake of my son.”

“I’m not trying to break up your marriage, don’t put words in my mouth,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m just worried about you and I wanted you to know that I’ll help you if you need it.”

Her face twisted with indignation. “Yes, please stand up there on your moral high ground and tell me about how you’ll rush in and save me from my husband. You would love that, being able to shove it in Rumple’s face.”

“No, that’s not—”

“I think you’d better just go,” she said. “I’ve got to check on Gideon.” Before he could say anything more, Belle ran out of the room.

~*~

“Hey, there you are,” Emma said as he walked through the door of the Mad Hatter’s Haberdashery. “I wasn’t sure if you’d gotten my message.”

Killian gave her a tight smile, anger still flooding his body. “Sorry, love. I was running an errand.”

“Okay, well, we’ve got another one. Clumsy forced entry, all the money gone from the cash register. Also Jefferson is fairly certain that he had an ashtray that his daughter Grace made in school sitting here on the counter, and that’s gone.”

Killian raised an eyebrow. “I don’t smell smoke in here.”

Jefferson smiled. “No one used it as an ashtray; I think it’s just easy for kids to make them.”

“Oh yeah, I remember making ashtrays in my day,” Emma said, laughing. “They were all terrible.”

The shared laugh between Emma and Jefferson made Killian scowl. “You never told me that,” he said.

Emma looked at him like he was crazy. “Yeah, it… never occurred to me. I’m sure there’s lots of school assignments I’ve never told you about.”

Her light-hearted tone made him angrier, and while he knew it was unreasonable, he couldn’t seem to control it. “Back door again?” Killian asked. On Emma’s nod, he stalked back through the curtain that separated the public part of the shop from the rest of it. 

An alley ran behind all the businesses on this street, each of them with nondescript back doors. Killian looked at the broken lock, and then stepped outside, wrinkling his nose against the smell of the garbage dumpster. He looked at the doors on either side of Jefferson’s shop, taking in the types of locks that adorned them. He studied the ground for anything that might have been dropped by the criminal, but came up empty. Satisfied that he’d found all there was to find, he went back inside.

Jefferson was holding Emma’s left hand, leaning down to study her rings. “That’s a nice rock,” he said, flashing her a flirtatious smile. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she said, grinning back at him.

“All the shops up and down the alley had deadbolt locks on their back doors,” Killian announced. “Your lock was rubbish and easily broken. That’s why the thief targeted you.”

Emma widened her eyes at him, in a gesture he was certain meant he shouldn’t be so rude with the victim, but just now he didn’t care. He didn’t care for this man and his stupid hats and his stupid inclination to flirt with his wife.

“Are we done?” he asked Emma.

She pressed her lips together, looking angry. “I’ve got a few more questions to ask, but _you_ can go back to the station if you want.”

“No, I’ll stay,” he muttered, folding his arms across his chest.

With a dismissive sigh, Emma turned back to Jefferson. “About how much money was taken, and what kind of bills, to the best of your recollection?”

“Mostly twenties,” he said. “A handful of ones, fives, and tens. Maybe one hundred, stuck underneath the drawer insert,” he said, ejecting the cash register drawer and showing her. Emma jotted down some notes on her pad.

“I don’t understand the habit of people in this town to just leave money in their cash registers when they go home at night,” Killian said. “Don’t you have a safe to lock it in? It’s idiotic.”

Emma glared at him. “I’m sorry for my deputy’s attitude,” she said through clenched teeth to Jefferson, “but given this rash of break-ins, I am going to ask Mayor Mills to issue a statement recommending that all businesses do just that. A safe for valuables, deadbolt locks on the doors. In the meantime, we’ll be increasing our nighttime patrols.” She tucked her pad away. “If you need anything else, please feel free to call me at the station.”

As soon as they were out on the street and far enough away from the haberdashery not to be heard, Emma wheeled on Killian. “What the hell was your problem in there?”

“I don’t like him. There’s something about him I just don’t like.”

“Yeah, he’s smarmy and an incorrigible flirt, so the fuck what? That doesn’t mean you can’t be courteous and professional when acting in your capacity as a Sheriff’s deputy.” She stomped over to her car and got in. Killian followed more slowly, climbing into the passenger seat.

“I apologize for my rudeness. It was a trying morning,” he said softly.

“What happened?”

“I saw Belle. It didn’t go well,” he answered.

“Shit. What did she say? What did _you_ say?”

He leaned against the car window. “Can we discuss it later?”

Emma focused on the road. “Yeah,” she said, her voice coming out harsh. “Whatever you want.”

The rest of the day was strained between them, both of them working on separate tasks around the office and giving each other a wide berth. It felt like a dark, rain-filled cloud was hovering over his head as he completed his paperwork and dealt with the people who came in to pay off their parking tickets. The cloud lingered as they drove home together and as he went about the process of preparing dinner for Emma and Henry. He could hear the sound of the canned laughter from some comedy program Emma was watching on television, and every laugh was like an icepick to his brain, making his shoulders hunch with tension until there was just a constant ache between them. 

The meal was silent. Henry seemed to pick up on the mood in the house and spent the entire dinner scrolling through his phone, with the occasional surreptitious glance between Emma and Killian. As soon as he reasonably could, he excused himself to his room and shut the door.

Emma washed the dishes while Killian put away the leftovers. “I’m going to spend the evening working on my navigation plans, if that’s all right, love.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” she answered, still facing the sink.

An hour spent hunched over his maps, studying the patterns of currents and estimating the optimal route to travel down to the Caribbean was soothing, and even though it was tedious work, his shoulders started to unknot. Pleased with his progress, he went in search of Emma.

She was lying on the sofa under a blanket, staring at the television.

“Emma, can I show you something?”

“Sure.” She followed him into the study.

“I’ve charted our course down to the Grenadines in the Caribbean.” He pointed on the map. “I thought we could dock here, at Port Elizabeth on the island of Bequia. The reading I’ve done using Henry’s computer tells me that it’s not overrun with tourists, and the beaches are supposed to be quite beautiful.”

Emma’s mouth was pinched as she stared at the map. “And we can just do that? Bring the _Jolly Roger_ into a port in the non-magical world? Don’t you think people will question the presence of a ship that looks like it’s out of one of the _Pirates of the Caribbean_ movies pulling into port? Especially without the full crew it would definitely need if it weren’t enchanted?”

“I don’t think people will be that interested in _her_ ,” he said, gently correcting Emma’s tendency to refer to the _Jolly Roger_ as ‘it’. “But if that’s a concern, I can probably find a hidden cove around one of the even more remote islands to drop anchor, and we can bring a rowboat onto shore.”

She shrugged, her lack of excitement starting to kill his own. “It just seems risky.”

“It will be fine, love. The _Jolly Roger_ can make this trip in a few days, and then it will be nothing but sun and sea and those fruity cocktails you told me about for as long as you like.” He tried giving her an encouraging smile. “I spoke to your father, and we can leave in another fortnight.”

In response, he got another tired shrug. “I don’t know if we can leave Storybrooke, not with this string of break-ins going on.”

“You seem rather determined to take the wind out of my sails.” He set his pencil down on the map, frustration boiling under the surface. “Your parents are encouraging us to go. Regina is encouraging us to go. People will fill in for you. So what’s the issue?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t want to travel with me?” he asked.

“You know that’s not it, Killian.”

“I don’t know anything of the sort, love, not with the way you’re acting.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I know you’ve been cross with me all day. I tried to apologize for my behavior earlier, but you seem determined to continue to punish me for it.”

“I’m not punishing you. I’m not even _mad_ at you, I’m just…” She sighed, stepping away from him.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” she said in a small voice. “I guess I’m afraid that if we leave, something will come here and threaten our family.”

That didn’t explain the fact that she’d been cold to him all evening, but he let it go for now. “No one is going to threaten our family, Emma, I swear it. And if they do, there are plenty of heroes in this town to fight any new threat in our absence.”

She folded her arms, giving him a stubborn stare.

“So what’s your solution then, to never go anywhere, _ever_?” he said, his voice rising in pitch. “To just sit here in Storybrooke for the rest of our lives, waiting for the worst to occur?”

“No. I don’t know.” He could see tears glistening in her eyes, but she fought them back, kept them at bay. “I just don’t think I’m ready for this trip right now. I’m sorry.”

He looked into Emma’s eyes, trying to read her, trying to determine where her reticence was coming from. He could see anxiety in the strain on her face, in the set of her shoulders. He remembered how many evenings since moving in together that he’d sought to soothe her, pressing his fingers into her shoulders and kneading knotted muscles. She was afraid — afraid that the fear and grief, constant for so many months, wasn’t over. 

Killian sagged, going over and pulling her into a hug. “I didn’t mean to put pressure on you. We don’t have to go.”

He felt Emma relax, her arms coming up around his back and squeezing him tight. “I just need time. Is that okay?” she whispered.

He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her. “It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry I’m so… messed up right now.”

Killian brought his hand to her cheek, shaking his head. “You have nothing to apologize for. I let my disastrous meeting with Belle this morning color my mood for the rest of the day. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

Emma leaned up and pressed her lips against his. “It’s okay,” she mumbled against his mouth. “We’re okay.”

“I love you,” he gasped as he pulled her tighter into him, kissed her harder. He felt a flare of arousal, a sudden desire to fuse their bodies together, as if he could burn away any remaining unhappiness by making her feel good. Emma responded, pressing her hand against his lower back and pulling their hips together. She tilted her head and opened her mouth wide, deepening the kiss.

“Mom?” came Henry’s voice from down the hall. She and Killian pulled apart quickly.

“In here,” she called back, absently running a hand through her hair. Killian adjusted the front of his jeans, and then sat down behind the desk for good measure.

“Hey,” Henry said, coming into the room. “I’m supposed to get this paper signed for class,” he said shoving something at Emma.

Emma looked at the paper. “A C-minus? What happened?”

Henry waved off her concern. “It’s no big deal, Mom, my English teacher is letting me turn in a rewrite, so that won’t be the actual grade.”

“Oh,” she said, “Okay. Do you have something to write with?”

Henry handed her a pen, and she scribbled her signature at the top. Killian could see Emma’s brow wrinkled in concern, but she didn’t say anything more about the grade.

“I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to Henry’s schoolwork,” she said after Henry left the room.

Killian got up and put his arm around her. “I’m sure we can rectify that, now that we have more time.”

“I don’t even know how many classes he might’ve missed because of everything else going on. And I’m not sure Regina’s been able to do much better, what with the whole Evil Queen situation.” She closed her eyes, exhaustion written plain across her face.

“Let’s turn in early, darling, and we’ll sort it out tomorrow.” 

Emma sighed. “Okay.”

He checked the lock on the front door and turned off the downstairs lights before ushering Emma up the stairs. The two of them went through their bedroom routines in silence. It wasn’t strained silence this time, though, it was comfortable, a brief touch between them as they passed each other going to the bathroom. Emma came over to his side of the bed and helped him unbuckle and remove his brace, her hands gentle on his skin. It had always made his heart skip a beat, the way she embraced both his hook and the scarred skin underneath as part of him; from the first time he had removed his brace in her presence, she had been unflinching in her acceptance. 

He went to get pajama pants from the dresser, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Emma was stripping down to a tank top and her underwear, pulling her bra out from underneath the tank top and not bothering with pajamas. As he approached the bed, she was already burrowing under the covers, settling down into her pillow, her long blonde hair fanned out around her head like a halo.

Killian settled on his own side of the bed (sometimes it still struck him, after so many years in a narrow bed lulled to sleep by rum and the rocking of the ocean waves, that this bed fit for a king was his to share with the woman he loved), leaning over to kiss Emma on the forehead softly.

“Sleep well, my wife,” he whispered.

Emma just arched an eyebrow. “That’s all I get?”

“Well, you are quite exhausted,” he said as she reached out and trailed her fingers down his chest.

“Yeah, but I’m also in the mood for sex,” she said, “if you are.”

He chuckled, nipping at her bottom lip. “You’re quite difficult to resist, love.”

“So why resist?” Emma asked, her hand continuing down until she had grasped his erection through his pajamas, tracing the outline of him before giving him a few hard strokes. His hips moved against her hand, seeking more friction.

“Are you sure?”

Emma grabbed his hand, moving it down underneath the waistband of her underwear and between her folds, letting him feel how wet she was. “I need you,” she spoke into his mouth as they continued to kiss. 

She kept her hand over his as he continued to touch her, parting her flesh with gentle strokes, sliding a finger inside before drawing it back up to circle her clit. Emma was soon reduced to clutching hands and panting breaths, her kisses sloppy against his mouth and throat. 

Just as the comfortable bed in his comfortable home still amazed him sometimes, Emma’s desire for him occasionally did the same. They had seen evidence that their love was true more than once; she had asked him to move in with her, had married him. Beyond that, he’d known she was attracted to him since that kiss in Neverland so long ago. And yet sometimes just the way she wanted him left him breathless.

Emma’s response to his touch had him deciding to bring her to climax with his hand, but before he could, she pushed him over onto his back and pulled her remaining clothes off. He barely managed to get his pajama pants off before Emma was swinging her leg over his hips, straddling him. She dragged herself over his cock, grinding down, taking her pleasure from the pressure of his erection against her clit. 

“That's it, darling,” he said, enduring the delicious torture of being so close to being inside her without getting what he really needed. “Use me to make yourself feel good.” She made a small choked-off noise in response. “You're so beautiful like this. The flush of your skin and gods, the way I can see the pleasure playing out on your face.” He moved his hips, focusing on making her come. Emma gasped and then let out a tiny whine of frustration. He could tell she was close, but struggling to bridge that final gap.

“What do you need, love?” He pressed against her back with his left arm, angling her down over him. “I'll do anything you need.” He kissed the sweat from her brow. “Do you want my tongue on you? My cock inside? Tell me.”

“I don't know.”

“I can use that delightful buzzing toy of yours, if you want,” he offered. 

She shook her head. “I think I need…I need you to fuck me.”

He nodded, running his hand along her back. “Lie down on your stomach, Emma. First I think you need to relax.”

She did as he asked, and he reached over and began working the knots out of her shoulders with his hand. Every press and flex of his fingers brought a moan from her lips, and he could feel her dissolving into the mattress as he worked. 

“Roll over,” he rasped, and when she had he continued his massage, squeezing with strong and calloused fingers along each arm and then over each breast. When she seemed lax enough, he grabbed an extra pillow and tapped her hip with his blunt wrist. “Up.” She lifted her hips and he put the pillow underneath before spreading her legs and positioning himself between.

“Are you ready for me, darling?” 

Emma nodded. He slowly entered her, staying up on his knees and gripping her thigh for leverage as he seated himself fully. With the first slow drag in and out, she swore, quickly ramping back up in arousal. She slid her hand between her legs, reaching down and touching him while he fucked her for a while before pressing her fingers on and around her clit. 

Killian gritted his teeth, the sensations of this angle almost too much, clamping down on his own approaching orgasm as Emma’s breathing accelerated. Her eyes went wide just before she crested over, then clamped shut as she fell, and he could feel the spasming of her muscles and that was all it took to follow her. Both of them cried out with their release, and he was grateful once again for the silencing spell that kept Henry oblivious when he was staying here.

“Jesus, Killian, that was incredible,” she finally said, a long time after he had cleaned her up and they had settled under the covers together.

“It’s my pleasure, Emma. Literally,” he added, making her laugh.

“I love you,” she murmured, and was very shortly thereafter asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Killian paced the across the floor, glancing at the clock again. He stopped, straightening a picture on the wall, then turned and paced some more. Checked the time again. Shifted one of the heavy candlesticks on the mantle over an inch. Looked at the clock. Paced.

Finally the front door to the house opened, and Henry walked in.

“Oh hey, Killian. I figured you’d still be at work.”

Killian hooked his thumb behind his belt buckle. “I’m going to patrol tonight to see if I can catch these thieves that have been giving us so much trouble, so I took the afternoon off.” He gestured with his hook. “Have a seat, Henry.”

Henry dropped his backpack on the floor. “Why?”

“Just sit down.”

Eyeing him suspiciously, Henry sat on the sofa.

“Did I not hear you tell your mother two nights ago that you were rewriting a paper on which you had gotten, I presume, an unsatisfactory grade?” Killian asked him.

Henry began to look nervous. “Yeah.”

“Then why, pray tell, did I answer a call at the sheriff’s station this morning from your English teacher, calling to inform Emma that you had not turned in three assignments, including this supposedly rewritten paper?” 

Henry sat silently, a war between panic and sullenness taking place on his face.

“She said you are barely scraping by with a ‘C’ in the class, which I gather is bad. So I need to know what’s going on with your schoolwork, lad.” 

Henry narrowed his eyes. “Why did _you_ talk to my teacher?”

“Because your mother was busy when she called, and I figured it was one thing I could spare Emma having to worry about, if I spoke to the teacher in her stead.” Killian sat down on the chair across from Henry. “And as I am your stepfather, Mrs. Ritchie was happy to discuss it with me.”

Sullen won the war for Henry’s facial expression, and he sat back against the sofa cushions. “I just didn’t have time to turn it in. She didn’t give me enough time.”

“I’ve seen you on the XBox and on your phone the last two nights, and you expect me to believe that you didn’t have _time_?” Henry just rolled his eyes at that, not answering. “Try again, lad.”

“I’ve got a lot going on,” he mumbled.

Killian sighed, giving up on getting a satisfactory explanation from Henry on the reason he’d been shirking his schoolwork. He stood up again. “Now, I realize there are only a few weeks left before the end of the school year, but I’m sure if we eliminate some distractions, you can bring your grades up. For starters, hand over your phone, please.” He held his hand out, palm up, to Henry.

Henry looked at him with incredulity. “You can’t take my phone.”

“I can and I will.”

With another, even more disdainful eye roll, Henry stood up and dug in his pocket. “Yeah, okay, but we’ll see what happens when Mom gets home.” He slapped the phone into Killian’s hand a little harder than necessary.

Killian chuckled. Although he was, deep down, nervous about disciplining Henry for the first time, all his years as a captain of pirates made it easy not to show it. “Believe what you want, Henry. I don’t think either of your mothers will disagree with me on this. Now have a seat at the table there,” he said, indicating the kitchen, “and get started on your homework where I can keep an eye on you.”

Henry was visibly furious, boiling underneath the surface, and Killian was bracing himself for the boy to shout ' _You’re not my father!_ ' or some similarly devastating statement. Instead he folded his arms and stated, “My computer is upstairs in my room. I need it.”

“And as I understand it, it’s portable, so you can go get it and set it up in the kitchen,” Killian countered.

With one final roll of his eyes, Henry stomped up the stairs. After a few minutes, he was quietly doing homework at the kitchen table, and Killian began preparations for dinner. 

~*~

“I still can’t believe he just stood there and lied to me,” Emma said, blinking at the early morning sunlight as they pulled up in front the converted house where Ashley Boyd ran her daycare. “Or, you know, lied by omission at least. Let me believe he had that English paper situation under control, when clearly he didn’t.”

Killian slid his coffee cup into the curve of his hook and closed the car door. He’d filled Emma in on the situation with Henry as soon as she’d come home the night before. Any trepidation that she might be angry at him for making an executive decision about Henry’s punishment quickly melted away. Mostly, she seemed grateful that he had handled it. After a dinner during which Henry ate silently while Emma and Killian attempted to make normal conversation, Killian had headed out on patrol, spending several hours walking up and down the sidewalks and alleys of Storybrooke’s business district, looking for evil-doers. Now he was sleep-deprived and cranky, especially since it had all been for nothing. While he’d been stalking around downtown, the thieves had hit a business in one of Storybrooke’s residential neighborhoods.

In the face of Emma’s anger about Henry’s school situation, Killian found his own anger had been replaced mostly with empathy. If he and Emma were having difficulty processing everything they had been through, how could he expect Henry to have a handle on it?

“I think we just need to provide an environment at home where he can’t avoid focusing on his studies,” he said as they approached the front door. “And I suppose we should fill in Regina.”

“I called her this morning,” Emma said as they walked through the door. Ashley approached with a toddler on each hip. 

“Hey guys, thanks for coming so quickly,” she said. “Give me just a second to get these two settled.”

Killian looked around at the controlled chaos of Ashley’s daycare. Ashley delivered the children she’d been holding to her assistant, who was in the process of soothing another child who’d just had a block thrown at his head by little girl with pigtails. With a grimace, Killian backed away.

“They aren’t going to swarm you, you know,” Emma said as he drank from his coffee cup and tried to drown the cobwebs in his brain. 

“You never know, Swan. Best to be cautious.”

“My office is right over here,” Ashley said, leading them down a hallway. “It was my own stupid fault for forgetting to lock all the windows before I went home.”

“No, love, it’s our fault for not tracking down the perpetrators yet,” Killian said as she flipped on the light in a cluttered room dominated by a large desk. 

“God, I haven’t even had a chance to talk to you guys since the wedding,” Ashley said. “How _are_ you?”

Killian smiled faintly. “Happy to be married, but not happy to be here under these circumstances. Can you tell us what was stolen?”

“Just money, and there wasn’t that much money for them to take; this isn’t really a cash business. Mostly people write me checks, or I have this new direct debit system…” She opened a drawer and pointed. “But I had this cash box with a couple hundred dollars in it, and they cleaned it out.”

“Ashley?” called her harried assistant. “I need your help for a minute.”

“Can you guys look around while I go deal with this?” she said, and was gone before they could respond.

Emma collapsed in Ashley’s desk chair, seeming disinclined to do any real investigating.

“You said you called Regina?” Killian set his coffee down and then used his hook to grab the cash box by the handle and lift it out of the drawer.

“Yeah, I filled her in, and she’s gonna follow up with the school today to make sure there aren’t any issues with any of Henry’s other classes.” She smirked. “Also I told her you’d confiscated Henry’s phone, so that she knows he’s not reachable that way.”

He probed at the flimsy, broken lock on the cash box with his hook. “This lock was cut with something.”

Emma glanced at it. “Yeah.”

“How did she react to the fact that I took his phone?” he asked.

Emma shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t, really.” She let her head fall back against the chair’s headrest. “I don’t like the idea that I can’t trust my own son.”

Killian went over to the window. “There could be fingerprints here.”

“Yeah, we’ll dust for prints,” Emma answered, not moving to do so. “If he’s gonna lie to me about this, how do I know I can trust him about anything?”

Killian felt the need to defend Henry again. “He's still a good lad, darling, he’s just gotten himself in over his head with school. We’ll sort it out.”

Ashley came back in, and Emma stood up. “We’ll need to check for prints, and we’ll take the cash box with us to the station to do the same.” She pulled out a pad of paper, but her distraction was palpable. “Anything else missing?”

Glancing around, Ashley frowned. Killian couldn’t imagine she’d be able to tell, the space was so cluttered. “Actually, yeah. I had a little Cinderella keychain that Sean got me sitting on top of my computer. I thought maybe it had just fallen off, but I can’t find it anywhere.”

“Another trophy,” Killian muttered.

“Yeah,” Emma said as she scribbled down a few notes. “Ashley, make sure you check all your doors and windows before you leave each night. We’ll let you know as soon as we know anything.”

Ashley shrugged, seemingly resigned to the fact that the money and her Cinderella keychain were gone. “Okay, thanks.” Then there was thump and a child’s wail from the other room, and she dashed off again.

“I’ll get the fingerprint kit from the car, shall I, love?” Killian asked.

Emma nodded, and then flopped back down in the desk chair.

~*~

“And Henry’s still giving you the silent treatment, huh?” David asked as he tipped the last of his beer into his mouth and flagged the bartender for another.

“Aye, for the most part.” Killian rotated his glass of rum on the bar, resisting the urge to swallow the drink in one large gulp. 

“He’ll get over it. You were right to punish him. He lied to Emma and it sounds like he’d been shirking a lot of his schoolwork.”

Killian sighed. “I know, but how much of that is his fault? All the battles we’ve been fighting, he’s been fighting them too. Given the effect it’s had on Emma, can I expect Henry, who is not yet a man grown, to have dealt with it any better?” He sipped from his glass, savoring the taste of the top shelf rum he’d ordered before swallowing it and letting it warm his chest.

“I’m not saying there aren’t good reasons for Henry’s behavior,” David responded, peeling at the label on his empty beer bottle. “There definitely are. But you can be cognizant of that and offer him support in dealing with those issues while still being firm about your expectations of him.” He clapped Killian on the back. “Trust me, you’re doing fine.”

Killian smirked. “Leading a band of pirates was easier.”

“Yeah, well, no one ever said being a parent was easy.”

That label took Killian aback. “I’m not really—”

“A stepparent is still a parent. It’s right there in the name.” He accepted his fresh beer from the bartender with a nod. “And I’m saying you’re being a good one, so take the compliment, Hook.”

They drank in silence for a minute before David spoke up again. “What did you mean about the effect it’s had on Emma?”

“She’s… struggling at the moment,” he said evasively, unsure what Emma would want him to share with her father.

“How so?”

“We’ve had so many traumas in rapid succession, I don’t think she can let herself believe that there isn’t another villain on the horizon. That we’re actually going to get some peace.”

“The honeymoon trip should help her relax,” David said. Killian raised his eyebrows at that, which made David grimace. “Ugh, I just mean getting out of Storybrooke would be good for her.”

“I agree, but she won’t go. Or at least, she says she’s not ready to go.” He took another sip of rum. “I don’t know how to convince her that she doesn’t have to keep sacrificing her happiness for the sake of this town.”

“Yeah, I’m afraid she gets that from Snow and me.” David frowned and looked down at the bar. “I could talk to her…”

“No, she might be cross with me for even mentioning it to you. She’s always so capable and strong; it’s hard for her to depend on other people. Or to be seen as weak,” Killian added.

“It’s not weak—”

“I know, mate.”

Grumpy and Happy came through the doors of the bar at that point, raising the decibel level in room significantly as they called out to other patrons before coming over and greeting David and Killian. When they left to go sit at a table, Killian rolled his next statement around in his mouth, debating whether to actually say it out loud.

“I just want to make her happy,” he said quietly.

“You do.” David held his gaze. “There is no doubt in my mind that no matter what else Emma is dealing with right now, you do make her happy. It still annoys me, frankly.”

Chuckling, Killian stood up and put some cash on the bar, trying to think of an equally good comeback. Instead he held out his hand to his father-in-law. “I’d best be getting home. Thank you for the advice.”

“Any time, Killian.”

~*~

“Shit.”

Killian looked up from his desk, where he was very slowly filling out a report on his computer, typing with two fingers. He could have had this done already if Emma would just let him fill out these reports with a pen, but she said she’d never get the station digitized if he kept creating more paper records. Why that was a priority of hers, he still didn’t quite understand.

“What is it, darling?”

“I’m supposed to be at the school in half an hour for that meeting with Henry’s teachers that Regina set up, but I’m also supposed to be at a meeting with the fire chief that I’ve already postponed three times. Fuck. I read my stupid calendar wrong.” She was staring at her cell phone accusingly, as if it had betrayed her.

“Can I go to the meeting with the fire chief for you?” he asked.

“No, that will only piss him off.”

“Then can I go to the meeting with Henry’s teachers?”

Emma looked thoughtful at that suggestion. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. You’re more familiar with his schoolwork situation right now than I am. Would you mind?”

“Not at all. Anything to lighten your burden.”

She dropped Killian off at the high school on her way to the fire station, and he managed to find his way to the room she’d instructed him to go to with a minimum of difficulty. Regina was already standing in the hall, the shadows of her high-heeled shoes casting a long and grotesque shape onto the polished floor.

“What are _you_ doing here?” she asked with her usual lack of tact.

“Emma had a conflict, so I’m here in her place.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I set up this meeting for myself and Emma. His mothers.”

Killian tried not to feel hurt at that, and drew himself up to his full height. “Surely as his stepfather I can offer some wisdom. I have been monitoring his time spent on homework fairly closely the last few days.”

“I didn't realize English literature was a prerequisite for becoming a pirate. You’d probably just as soon set him to work swabbing the decks of your ship than send him to school,” she grumbled.

“I happen to think that school is important, Regina,” he said patiently. It’s not as if the two of them had ever really talked about this, so maybe he couldn’t blame her for knowing so little about him. “I spent my childhood laboring as an indentured servant, and the only reason I learned to read was the pains my brother took to teach me by the light of a single candle, belowdecks.”

She gave him an appraising look. “I suppose you are reasonably educated,” she allowed.

“Well, what I didn’t learn at my brother’s knee, I learned in the Royal Naval Academy.”

Regina’s resulting expression was somehow simultaneously impressed and annoyed. “Henry isn’t a naval cadet. You can’t captain him into submission.”

“I’m aware of that. And for what it’s worth, I think he may be experiencing the aftereffects of everything we’ve been through, including Emma and me being Dark Ones, me dying, Robin dying, you splitting into two people, his grandparents being under a sleeping curse, and then of course the final battle. So mostly, now that none of us are dead or battling evil or cursed or grieving, I think he needs our support to get past all of those terrible experiences.”

Regina raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised by his insight. “I… agree.”

“Good.”

“He may not forgive you for taking his phone away for a while,” she said.

 

“I know.”

Regina smirked, but it seemed to be one of grudging approval.

The door to the classroom opened, and Mrs. Ritchie, the bubbly English teacher, beckoned them inside. Killian introduced himself to the others of Henry’s teachers and to the assistant principal, Dr. Wardmore. Dr. Wardmore was a tall woman with her hair in a severe bun and glasses perched on the end of her nose. None of them seemed to think it was odd that Killian was there and Emma wasn’t, and he relaxed a bit. He and Regina were invited to sit in two other school desks, pulled into a circle with those that the school staff were already seated in. Killian sat down, resting his hooked arm along the armrest that connected the desk to the chair. A couple of the teachers eyed it nervously.

Regina immediately took control of the meeting, which wasn’t surprising, Killian thought. For the moment, he decided to sit back and watch her go.

“I called this meeting so that we could get a complete picture of Henry’s semester. To be frank, I was quite disappointed to learn that we were not informed more promptly that he had missed assignments in some of his classes so that we could take more swift action to correct it.”

The array of teachers before them glanced at each other nervously. Mr. Howard, the history teacher, spoke up. He was a short, balding man with a kindly demeanor. “I appreciate your concern, Mayor Mills.” He glanced through some notes. “I did try to call on a couple of occasions, and I was told you and Ms. Swan were… trapped in a mirror?” 

Regina bowed her head slightly to concede that point.

The assistant principal cleared her throat. “We obviously have a pattern of absences going back over a year with Henry. Several weeks missed because he was in Camelot, another several days in ‘the Underworld’, sporadic absences here and there that we were told after the fact were due to funerals, or an unexpected trip to New York, or issues involving the Evil Queen... “ She fiddled with an earring nervously. “You know, when there were two of you… not that you’re evil, Ms. Mills.”

“Henry made up the work he missed when he was unable to be at school,” Regina said, putting on her haughtiest expression.

“Some of it,” Dr. Wardmore replied. 

“He has often turned in things late for my class, and when asked to explain, has said his duties as ‘The Author’ required his attention,” said Ms. Collins, the math teacher, a woman in a threadbare cardigan with frizzy hair.

Killian and Regina glanced at each other. While that was perhaps occasionally true, Killian wondered if Henry had been playing the author card a little too liberally.

Before Regina could argue, Killian held his hand out to stop her speaking. “I think we can all agree that it was a difficult year for our family. For all of Storybrooke, actually, but most of the challenges we faced hit the royal family the hardest. We don’t want to make excuses for Henry, but he’s faced some rather extraordinary circumstances, and while his mothers have done what they could, they’ve had their own challenges to face.”

The assistant principal was consulting her notes again. “So the times he was tardy because he was helping his mother…” she ran her finger down a list on a piece of paper, “‘be less evil’?”

“Depending on when that was, that could be either one of us,” Regina murmured to Killian.

“Or this one, where the excuse is just listed as ‘Black Fairy’?”

Regina raised an eyebrow. “What’s your point?” she said, her anger close to boiling over. “If it weren’t for my son’s heroics during the final battle, none of us would even be here to be having this meeting.”

“We just want to make sure that Henry is well-positioned to move forward into tenth grade,” Dr. Wardmore said.

“Then let’s focus on that,” Regina said. “If you can provide him with a list of missed assignments, we will ensure that he completes them. Perhaps, if necessary, accommodations can be made for him to receive incompletes now and finish some of the work over the summer.”

Killian didn’t know what an ‘incomplete’ was, but he thought that sounded reasonable. “We will also be working together as a family to make sure that any lingering trauma from the things Henry has been through are dealt with,” Killian added.

Regina nodded, giving him a grateful glance. “Yes, precisely. With Dr. Hopper’s help, of course.”

That seemed to allay some remaining concern with the staff, as they all relaxed, looking at each other and nodding. “I think that’s excellent, Ms. Mills. If Dr. Hopper would provide a report for Henry’s file, then we can certainly make accommodations as you suggest.”

The meeting broke up shortly thereafter, and Killian walked Regina to her car. “The nerve of those people,” she said once they were out of earshot. “They’d all be dead if it weren’t for Henry.”

“They’re just trying to do their jobs,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and pulled out her keys, unlocking her car. “Do you want a ride back to the sheriff’s station?”

“Thank you, I’d appreciate that,” he said, walking around to the passenger side. He slid into the leather seat of Regina’s Mercedes, enjoying how comfortable it was compared to Emma’s vehicle. He leaned his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes as Regina backed out of her parking spot.

“Thanks,” she said, “for the things you said in there.”

“I only said what was true,” he answered without opening his eyes.

There was a long pause as she drove. “I’m glad Henry has you… as a stepfather,” she said, clearly finding paying him a compliment excruciating. 

Killian thought about returning a snarky comment, but decided against it. He opened his eyes and turned to look at her in profile. “I love him as if he were my own, Regina. I’ll always do what I can to support him.”

She glanced at him quickly, then back at the road. If he wasn’t mistaken, her eyes were slightly glassy with tears. “I’m counting on it.”

~*~

Killian tapped on Henry’s bedroom door with his hook. There was a long pause before he heard ‘come in’ from the other side.

He opened the door to see Henry seated at his desk, typing on his laptop. “I’m doing homework, you don’t have to check on me all the time,” he said without looking up.

“Actually, I was thinking of getting pizza, and I wondered what you wanted on it,” Killian said mildly. He was getting used to letting Henry’s retorts roll off of his back.

Henry looked up, skeptical. “Not anchovies.”

“Not anchovies,” Killian agreed. “We can get pepperoni, if you really want those greasy red discs.”

“Yes!” he cheered, and then his grin faltered. “We could just get pepperoni on one half, and then something you like on the other.”

“That sounds like a fine compromise. I’ll go telephone the pizza restaurant and place the order.” He started to close Henry’s door.

“Hey, Hook?”

“Yes?”

“Later, do you wanna maybe… do some sparring in the yard?”

Killian’s heart skipped a beat. “I would love that, lad. I’ll go find the practice swords in the shed.”

“Okay, cool. Um, any chance I can get my phone back soon?”

“Let’s see what grade you get on the make-up algebra test you’re taking tomorrow, shall we? And then I’ll consider it.”

Henry sighed, but he didn’t look angry. He even smiled at Killian. “I’m gonna ace that test, so I’m pretty sure that phone’s as good as mine.”

Killian grinned back. “That’s the spirit.”


	5. Chapter 5

Emma stirred sugar into her coffee mug as she stared out the kitchen window. For the first time possibly ever (not counting those early days of their relationship when she’d set her alarm extra early to try to sneak out of Killian’s room at Granny’s without half the town seeing her), Emma had woken up before her husband. She could hear the shower running upstairs, while here she was already dressed and ready for work. Up was down, black was white, and Emma Swan was ready for work early. Something had woken her up at five in the morning and she’d just lain there, awake, until finally giving in and getting out of bed. 

Sighing, she turned around to see yesterday’s mail neatly stacked on the kitchen table where Killian left it for her the day before. Walking over, she idly flipped through the pile. There was a water bill, a notice that she was pre-approved for a credit card, a postcard coupon for 20% off at the Three Bears Day Spa, a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog (and she wondered what kind of dark magic they’d used to track her to Storybrooke), and a letter from the Dr. Naito’s office. She pulled that one out, setting down her coffee to open the envelope. Her eyes scanned the brief letter, and she mentally added ‘call the doctor’ to her increasingly long list of things to do.

By the time Killian came downstairs, she was on her second cup of coffee and had managed to make some toast. 

“I hardly knew what to do this morning, you waking before me,” he said with a kiss on her cheek. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah, I just woke up at five and my body decided it was done sleeping.”

Killian poured coffee into his favorite mug. “You should have woken me,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“I wasn’t really in the mood for that, or I would have.”

He sat down beside her at the table. The letter from her doctor was lying in front of him, and his eyes skimmed over the text. “What’s a pelvic exam?” he asked her.

Emma snorted. “Surely you can guess.” He just looked at her expectantly. “Dr. Naito’s my gynecologist, which means she’s a doctor for my lady parts.”

“I’m glad to hear Dr. Whale doesn’t take care of that,” he said.

“Yeah, tell me about it. She delivered Ashley’s daughter, so I met her not long after I moved here. Anyway, a pelvic exam is an annual checkup that women get.”

“What sort of checkup?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “I promise it’s not sexy to describe.”

“I wasn’t implying that it was, love, I’m just curious.” He got up and went over to the refrigerator, pulling out a carton of eggs and setting it down next to the stovetop.

“Okay, well, you get undressed and have to wear a stupid paper gown. Then you put your feet up in these metal stirrups so that the doctor can get a good look at your vagina.”

“I don’t have one of those,” Killian commented, smirking, as he cracked eggs into a bowl.

“And that’s why you don’t need a gynecologist, babe,” Emma mumbled around a mouthful of toast. “So there’s a few things she’ll do, but the main thing is a Pap smear.”

“What’s that?”

Emma made a face. “I suck at trying to explain stuff like this. It’s where they take a sample of cells from your cervix and test them for, like, cancer.”

“Cancer?”

“Yeah, cancer is—”

“I know what cancer is, Swan, I’m just worried at the idea that you might have it.” He abandoned the eggs he’d been whisking and approached her at the table.

“There’s no reason to think I have it, Killian, it’s just a test they do on all women. It’s routine. She’ll also check my IUD, although I should have at least another year on it—”

“Do you want me to accompany you to this appointment?” he asked, his eyes still filled with concern. Perhaps it was his life in the Enchanted Forest that was coloring his reaction. Probably in his experience, by the time a doctor was summoned, things were already terribly wrong.

“Killian, I need you to chill out.” She put her hand over his. “There is really nothing for you to worry about. I’ve had plenty of these tests before, and they always come back negative. Which is good, negative is good. It means there’s nothing wrong.”

He seemed to visibly relax a bit. “If you say so. I’d still happily go with you, if you want moral support.”

“I really don’t.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not that big a deal for me, I promise. You being there would be weird.”

“It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before, love.” He returned to his scrambled egg preparation. 

“Yeah, but there’s sexy contexts for my vagina and unsexy ones, and I really don’t want to mix the two.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “All right, if you’re certain.”

In spite of his acceptance of this aspect of modern life for a woman of reproductive age, as they went about their usual work that day, Killian seemed clingy. It was as if, after all the threats to her life that he had witnessed, it was just now occurring to him that he could lose her to something much more pedestrian. Throughout the day, every time they were in the same room was an opportunity for him to press his hand supportively against her back or squeeze her hand or shoot her one of his lovestruck expressions.

To be honest, it was a little bit annoying.

She loved Killian’s affectionate personality, she really did. After she spent her childhood starved for human touch, she usually revelled in how frequently he touched her, and how obvious it was that he loved her. Today though, although she would never tell him so, she was feeling smothered by it. She encouraged Killian to take off early so that at least one of them could be home when Henry got home, her ulterior motive being that she really needed some time alone.

In the quiet station, Emma took a box of push-pins out of her desk and stood at the map of Storybrooke, putting a pin into each of the locations where the recent rash of break-ins had occurred. Granny’s, Moe’s flower shop, and Jefferson’s shop were all relatively near the middle of downtown, while Ashley’s daycare was further away. She supposed that the increased vigilance of the store owners in town, coupled with Killian’s patrols, might have driven the thieves to search further afield for a target. There probably wasn’t anything to the pattern, as it was mostly driven by opportunity.

She pulled up the reports for each of the robberies, looking at the dates. They were spaced roughly seven to ten days apart, which meant they were due for another break-in soon. She really wanted to catch these people, whoever they were.

Emma had been checking around with the other Storybrooke businesses to see if anyone had made any unusual purchases with a large chunk of cash, but so far, nothing. And while it was now possible for anyone to leave Storybrooke any time they wanted, for the most part, people didn’t. The former residents of the Enchanted Forest were uncomfortable out in the land without magic, or they were still afraid that crossing the town line would have some horrible effect on them, and almost everyone behaved as if that barrier still existed. So while it was possible that the thief or thieves were spending their spoils out of town, she somehow doubted it. More likely, they were stashing the cash in a sock drawer or under a mattress, waiting for something. If she could just get a suspect, a search might be their downfall.

The main phone line for the sheriff’s station rang, making her jump. Emma picked up the receiver, and was immediately treated to the sound of a sneeze right in her ear.

“Sheriff Swan,” she said.

“Hi, Emma, it’s Sneezy.”

“I figured. What can I do for you?”

“Listen, maybe it’s nothing, but Grumpy said I should call you. When I looked out the window of the pharmacy a little while ago, I thought I saw someone looking over here from behind a tree across the street.” He paused to sneeze again. “I didn’t get a good look; I mean it was just for a second, and—” Another sneeze interrupted his tale.

“Are they still over there?” she asked, looking around for her car keys.

“No, not anymore. Like I said, maybe it was nothing, but given all the robberies…”

“Yeah. You were right to call me. What did the person look like?” Emma sat down on the edge of her desk, looking at the map again and picturing a pin in the spot where the pharmacy was.

“I didn’t get a good look.”

“Man? Woman? Short? Tall? Young? Old?”

“Man, I think. Average height. Other than that, I don’t know. I really didn’t see his face.”

She sighed. “Okay. What time do you close?”

“Six o’clock.” Emma rolled her eyes; she didn’t miss much about Boston, but she did miss stores that managed to stay open past dark. 

“Okay, lock up tight and don’t leave any cash unsecured anywhere,” she told him. “Killian or I will try to keep an eye on the place tonight, in case they come back and try to break in.”

He sneezed three times in rapid succession. “Will do, Sheriff.”

Emma started to call Killian, and then stopped and looked at the time on her phone. It was almost six now, although she assumed nothing would happen before dark. She was suddenly transported back to her bail bondsperson days, when she used to sit on a stakeout in her car with nothing but a tattered sudoku book and a box of those protein bars that were really just glorified candy bars. It was often cold and always boring, but she was perversely nostalgic for it all of a sudden: a time when she could sit in her car all night and eat junk food and no one would care. No one would wonder where she was, because there was no one in her life to wonder.

She loved having people who worried about her and missed her and wanted to be at her side. It was all she had ever dreamed of as a kid. But in that moment, she felt a strange pang of longing for a time when the only person she had to answer to was herself.

Emma started to plan. If she was going to stake out the drug store, she needed a less conspicuous car than the department’s one squad car or her yellow Bug, which everyone in town knew on sight. She thought about cars she could borrow. Regina’s Mercedes and her dad’s truck were as well-known in town as her own car. Zelena’s green monstrosity would stick out like a sore thumb. She needed a boring car, the kind of car that your eyes just slid over without even seeing.

 _Mom’s station wagon_ , she thought. _Perfect_.

She dashed off a text to Killian: **_I’ve maybe got a lead on the robberies. Don’t wait up._**

Not three seconds passed before he was calling her.

“I’ll join you,” Killian said by way of a greeting. “What’s the lead?”

She felt immediately churlish. “You’ve been working a lot of long hours lately; I’ve got this.”

“Don’t be silly, Swan, I’m perfectly well rested. If you think there’s a way to catch the thieves tonight, I’d like to be there to help.”

He had a point, and she knew it. There could be more than one of them, and it would help to have Killian to take them down. And yet, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from arguing. “I don’t want to pull rank on you, but I will if I have to. We can’t expect to run the sheriff’s station effectively if we’re both pulling all-nighters at the same time.”

There was a long pause. “Sounds like you’ve made up your mind.”

“I have.”

“Fine. At least promise to call me if you need help,” he said, anger evident in his voice.

“I will.”

He disconnected the call without saying goodbye. Whether that was an indication of his level of frustration or his lack of phone etiquette, she wasn’t sure.

 ** _I love you_** , she texted to him. 

He didn’t respond, but Killian wasn’t really a texter, so that wasn’t unusual. Gathering up her belongings, Emma locked up the station, phoning her mother to warn her that she was on her way to borrow her car as she mentally made a list of the terrible junk food she wanted to buy in preparation for her stake out.

~*~

By 10:30 p.m., Emma had finished off the coffee she’d picked up from Granny’s to stay awake.

By midnight, she’d eaten two protein bars and an entire package of Sour Patch Kids, and felt a little sick to her stomach.

At 1:15 a.m., after too many games of Words with Friends with Zelena, her phone battery died. She reached for her charger, groaning when she belatedly realized she’d left it in her Bug when she switched cars with her mother. Frustrated, she threw the phone onto the passenger seat. What she wouldn’t give for a sudoku book right about now, she thought.

At 2:00 a.m., after whisper-singing to herself every pop song she could think of, she started to nod off for the first time. 

At about 2:45 a.m., she started to really miss her husband.

The first indication that dawn was on its way reached her eyes sometime after 4:00. Either she’d been wrong that someone was casing the pharmacy, or she’d been wrong that they planned to hit it tonight, or they’d spotted her and gotten scared off. Regardless, her sleepless night had been a huge waste of time. Cranking the engine of Snow’s sensible station wagon, Emma headed for home, figuring she could get a couple of hours of sleep before work.

The house was dim and silent when she let herself in, and she kicked off her shoes, already thinking about how nice and warm Killian would feel when she curled up against him under the covers.

Tiptoeing into the bedroom and closing the door softly, Emma was headed for the bathroom to brush her teeth when Killian turned on his lamp. She jumped.

“I thought you were asleep,” she said, her hand over her chest.

He sat up in bed. “I was, but after I awoke a couple of hours ago and tried phoning you and you didn’t respond, I was too worried to sleep.” The muscle in his jaw spasmed, and Emma knew that he was angry.

“My phone died and I forgot my charger. I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“That was when I realized that you hadn’t even bothered to tell me where you would be. So I’ve been lying here, wondering if I should try walking all over town to try to find you, or if I should call your father and ask him to drive me around looking for you. Or maybe I could go up to the top of the clock tower and spot you that way. And I tried to weigh your frustration with me for doing any of those things against the odds that you were lying injured somewhere. Or dead.” His voice got louder and louder as he spoke, until he was almost shouting at her by the end, his tirade slightly undercut by his mussed bedhead. 

Emma swallowed around a lump in her throat. “You’re right. I was thoughtless.”

“Yes, you were.”

She sat down at his side, wondering if she should take his hand. “Can you forgive me?”

He huffed. “Emma, I love you more than anything in my life, of course I can forgive you, but I need to know why you shut me out today.”

She winced. “I just… I still sometimes get itchy, depending on people. And having people depend on me. Maybe I’ll never be completely comfortable with it, I don’t know.” Now she did reach for his hand, and was relieved when he squeezed her fingers gently. 

“I watched you die, Emma,” he said, his voice raspy. She looked up from their joined hands into his eyes. “I stood in the street and watched you, my wife who I’d barely managed to have five minutes with after we exchanged vows, throw your sword aside and get impaled.”

“Hey, at least you didn’t have to do the impaling yourself like I did,” she said, trying to make a joke out of the worst moment of her life. Killian didn’t smile.

“You’ve been a beacon of light in my life, leading me out of the darkness. Two hundred years of selfishness and revenge and murder, and loving you pulled me out of that. And I can’t help but think…” He took a shaky breath and looked down at their joined hands again, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. “I had a lot of time to ponder this, while that prophecy was hanging over your head. And it’s not just that losing you would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s that I don’t think I can keep myself from becoming that man again if I lose you.”

Emma’s heart broke for him. “I think you’re wrong. I think you can. For Henry. For Mom and Dad and for everyone in this town who counts on you and looks to you as a hero. Maybe it was me who started you on the right path at first, but I don’t think it’s me that keeps you on it.” She laughed. “For one thing, I’m not that saintly a person myself.” She scooted a little bit closer to him on the bed. “You still think of yourself as a bad man who changed. But I feel like I know you pretty well by now, and let me tell you, you’re not that. You’re a good man who spent a long time lost, and now you’ve rediscovered who you really are.”

He pursed his lips with a hint of a smile. “Perhaps.”

“We’ve both faced losing the other, and we didn’t deal with it very well.” She blew out a breath. “Me especially. But unless we get super lucky, and live to be a hundred — or in your case, four hundred or whatever,” she said with a laugh, “and die together in our sleep, someday one of us is gonna have to face life without the other.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know how. And I’m sorry; I annoyed you today because I was struggling with letting you do things on your own, and I know how independent you are—”

“I could’ve been a lot more sensitive to your fears,” she admitted, leaning over and pulling him into a hug. There was a pause, and then she felt his hand pressing hard against her back, the solid strength of his arms holding her tight.

“I thought I was over it,” he said against her shoulder. “You lived, and everything turned out fine, and almost before I could take a breath we were celebrating our slightly delayed wedding night, and I thought I was over it. But this morning, imagining you falling ill, and then when I couldn’t reach you on your phone…”

“I’m sorry.” She brushed a kiss against his cheek. “I’m really sorry.” Letting out a little hiccupping sigh, an almost-sob, Emma continued to kiss his face. “I’m not over it either,” she whispered.

He kissed her lips then, hard and forceful, a little bit sloppy in his haste. Emma crawled into his lap, their mouths meeting over and over with increasing desperation. “I love you so much,” he gasped as she writhed against him, quite suddenly so aroused that she felt like she was going to jump out of her skin if he didn’t touch her.

“I love you, too.” She spoke the words into his bare shoulder, her teeth scraping his skin. She felt the need to apologize again for making him worry, but she’d apologized enough and he’d accepted, and there was nothing else she could say now. All she could do was let their bodies take over and hope that the pleasure they could make between them would give them both a measure of comfort.

Killian moved his hand around to start unbuttoning her blouse but he was trembling, struggling to work the tiny buttons. Emma stood up from the bed, pulling her clothes off and tossing them aside quickly as Killian did the same with his pajamas. She was back on top of him in an instant, pressing as much of her skin against his as she could, bracketing his hips with her knees, her breasts crushed against his chest and his arms circling her. It felt so good to feel his body against her, warm skin and coarse hair, his calloused fingertips running down her back.

“Tell me what to do,” she said softly, combing her fingers through his hair. “What can I do to make you feel good?”

Usually he was the one asking those kinds of questions, catering to her every desire as if everything he did to her in bed wasn’t fantastic. But tonight it felt hugely important to her that she do for him.

Killian pressed his forehead against hers. “I just need _you_ , Emma.”

Emma reached down between them, closing her fingers around his erection and stroking slowly, making him whimper. “You’re always so good to me. Let me be good to you.”

“You _are_ , gods, _so_ good.” His hips rose underneath her, chasing the movement of her hand. 

Suddenly there was nothing she wanted more than to see him come apart like this while they held each other. Emma leaned to one side and made a grab for her bedside table drawer. Killian braced her thigh with the stump of his left wrist so that she wouldn’t fall off of the bed, and she pulled a bottle of lube out of the drawer. He watched her with hooded eyes as she squeezed a small amount of the lubricant into her palm.

When she returned to stroking him, making everything slick as she worked her hand up and down, Killian groaned, his hips matching the rhythm of her strokes. She wrapped her other arm around his back, squeezed him with her thighs, holding him close with every part of her that she could. She felt her inner muscles clenching at the sight of her husband coming undone, wanted to take him inside her and fuck him so badly, but she resisted the temptation. She needed to focus solely on his pleasure for now.

“I wanna see you come, Killian,” she said, increasing the pace of her fist, twisting it over the head of his cock with every upstroke. His eyes clamped shut, a grimace of pleasure-pain on his face. His hand went into her hair, fingers closing in the strands and pulling just enough to make her scalp tingle with the edge of pain.

“You’re mine, my love, my husband, a good man, you’re a good man.” she mumbled, hardly aware if anything she was saying was making sense, because he felt like he was close, he was so very hard in her hand and she was increasingly desperate for it, to feel that hardness slide into her body would feel so fucking amazing, but she kept stroking and he was fucking her fist, his moans increasingly out of his control.

His voice was a hoarse shout when he came, and she watched as the pearly white fluid hit her stomach, dripping down as she coaxed him through it, only letting go when she felt the spasms under her hand stop and his muscles start to relax.

Killian glanced at her from under his eyelashes, his heavy panting breath hot against her skin. He smiled shyly, before looking down at her abdomen again.

“I’ve made a mess of you,” he said, the gravel in his voice turning her on even more.

Emma rolled off of him, collapsing on her back, not cleaning herself up right away so he could look his fill. “Do you like it?” She ran a finger down between her breasts and into the wet evidence of his climax on her stomach. “Seeing me like this?”

Killian slid down and turned on his side, not taking his eyes off of her. “Aye.”

She grinned. “Keep watching.” Her hand continued its path down her body, plunging between her folds and further, two fingers slipping inside and _fuck_ , watching him get off had made her so wet and sensitive. She pressed her palm against her clit and started a rhythm with her hand and her hips. The wet sound of her fingers pumping in and out of her reached her ears.

“You’re a vision like this, marked with my seed and desperate for more,” he said, propping himself up on his elbow. He reached out with his hand, gripping her upper thigh and pulling her legs further apart but otherwise not interfering with what she was doing. 

Emma gasped out a strangled noise, shameless in the way she was moving and fucking herself and reaching for her orgasm, which she was barreling toward faster than she would’ve believed, given how incredibly intimate all of this was. Killian watching her touch herself should have been inhibiting, but it wasn’t. She wanted him to see how much she loved him and wanted him, and how just watching him had made her feel so good even when no one was touching her.

She cried out wordlessly, felt her muscles convulse in deep pulses against her fingers as she rode out her climax, her thighs drawing closer together and squeezing her hand in between. At some point she’d closed her eyes, and she felt Killian lift her hand and draw it up to his mouth, his tongue licking the wetness from her fingers. Then he pulled her limp body into his arms, hugging her close.

“Now we’re both a mess,” she said, almost giggling as their abdomens pressed together.

“I don’t give a fuck,” Killian said. He nuzzled against her cheek. “That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

Emma snorted, thinking to herself that she doubted it, given the few racy stories she’d managed to wrangle out of him about Milah, and about some of the debauchery he’d witnessed in brothels over his years as a pirate.

“I can prove it to you, love.” He kissed her chin, rutting his hips against her, and she could tell that he was already half-hard again. “Let’s go rinse off in the shower, and then I’ll fuck you until you can’t move.”

“It’s a deal,” she said, grinning. Killian started to get up, but she stopped him with a hand on his bicep. “Hey. I love you. And I love being with you, even if I sometimes don’t show it.”

He brushed his lips over hers in a soft caress. “Anytime you need to be alone for a little bit, just say the word. I’ll understand.”

“And then afterwards—”

“We come back together like this.” He hauled her leg up over his hip, grinding against her center. 

Emma gasped. “Yeah, that works for me.”


	6. Chapter 6

Killian had been one hundred percent correct. Emma couldn’t move.

“Stay here and get some sleep,” he murmured, their skin damp with sweat but both of them as yet unwilling to let go of each other. “I’ll go into the station.”

Emma made a weak noise of protest. “You didn’t get much sleep either,” she said, her eyes refusing to open.

“I got a few hours, whereas you got none at all.” His lips pressed against her temple, his beard scratchy against her cheek. “You worked for twenty hours straight yesterday. Take the day, love. Do something for yourself and let me handle work.”

She blinked heavily, squinting at him. “Are you sure?”

“I insist on it.”

“I may just lie here in a sex coma for the rest of the day, then,” she said, stretching languidly against the smooth sheets. 

He chuckled, kissing her again quickly before getting out of bed. The last thing she heard was the sound of Killian opening his dresser drawers before she sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When Emma finally awoke and reached for her phone it was almost noon. She sat up, her brain moving slowly through a fog. She still felt like she had an emotional hangover from the argument with Killian and everything that happened after. It had been good, in the end, that they got so many of their feelings out on the table. But Emma sensed that just because the future looked clear now did not mean there wouldn’t be more choppy seas ahead. (And the fact that she was thinking in nautical metaphors did not escape her notice.) Besides all of the baggage that both of them carried from their past traumas, there was still this ever-present anxiety that she felt hanging over her, draining a lot of the joy out of what should have been a blissfully happy time in her life. Not that she and Killian didn’t have their blissful moments, but Emma longed to be more relaxed, and not just when she was distracted from her anxiety by sex.

Scrolling through her contact list, her finger hovered over one of the names, and she chewed her lip with indecision before finally making a call.

“Hey, Archie. Do you have any openings in your schedule this afternoon?”

~*~

“Thanks for making time for me,” she said, dropping onto Archie Hopper’s familiar leather couch.

“It was no trouble, I don’t have another appointment until four o’clock. Although I’ll admit, I was surprised to hear from you, with the final battle now over.” He crossed one leg over the other, watching her.

“Figured I’d be out living my happy ending, huh?” Emma stared up at the ceiling, her eyes following a crack from one corner to another.

“I guess something like that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to do that when I’m always looking over my shoulder, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Which is a mixed metaphor, but you know what I mean. I’ve hardly had a chance to breathe in, like, two years. Now I finally can, and I’m just…” She sighed. “I need you to fix me.”

“Are you still experiencing the tremors?” he asked.

“No, my magic is fine.”

Over the next forty-five minutes, she talked to Archie about her parents’ move, the changes at work, her marriage, and Henry. It helped, talking to someone who wasn’t emotionally invested in her life.

“Emma, you’re showing many of the signs of clinical depression,” Archie finally said. “Which, for someone who’s been through as much as you have, is completely normal. And no, there’s no quick fix for it, but we can look into some medications that might help you. Either way, we should set up a weekly appointment, and in time, you will start to feel better.”

She sat up. “I figured you’d say something like that.”

He smiled at her. “Sorry to be so predictable. The last thing I’ll add is, don’t be afraid to lean on the people around you who love you. I know you’re in the habit of being the strong one, and that your first instinct is to take care of things on your own. There's no shame in letting other people know that you're struggling, Emma."

~*~

Killian took a sip of coffee as he looked at the map of Storybrooke in Emma’s office. If she had noticed a pattern in the sites of the robberies, she hadn’t told him what it was. She had explained about Sneezy’s drug store while they were toweling off from the shower and before they fell back into bed that morning, and he debated to himself whether they should continue to keep an eye on it tonight, or if that was a dead end.

The station was quiet, so he decided to sit at Emma’s desk and continue with her digitization project. She’d shown him how to use the “scanner” to transfer old documents to the computer, although if you asked him, it seemed much safer to keep things as paper than to send them into the computer, in whatever ephemeral form they took inside that infernal box. Still, this was something Emma wanted done, and she would probably appreciate it if he could make a dent in the project.

Once he got into the rhythm of it — put a document on the scanner, press a button, wait for it to appear on the computer, save it to the folder that Emma had showed him — his mind drifted back to the trophies that the thieves had taken: a little wolf trinket, a piece of pottery made by child, a small model of a princess. Nothing had disappeared from Moe’s, although Killian had wondered if maybe the item taken in that case was a flower, and therefore nothing appeared to be missing. The collection seemed almost childish to his mind. It reminded him of the shelf of keepsakes in Henry’s bedroom that he found particularly annoying to dust, littered as it was with superhero action figures and little mementos of some of his dates with Violet, such as the dried flower he’d worn in his lapel when he intended to take her to the school dance. 

_Childish._

Killian darted up from the desk, grabbed his leather jacket, and hurried out of the station.

~*~

“Just one more week of school, and let me tell you, I am counting the days,” Snow said, settling down at her kitchen table next to Emma. “I’m glad you called; I feel like we haven’t seen you in weeks.”

Emma resisted the urge to point out that her parents were the ones who had moved out to the very edge of town. “We had dinner together last week,” she said instead. 

“True. Anyway, how nice of Killian to give you the day off. Sounds like you needed it.”

“I mean, technically, he can’t _give_ me the day off — I’m his boss, but yes, I did need it.” Emma wrapped her fingers around the cup of tea her mother had made her. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s out of town, can you believe it? Answered an ad on Craig’s List for a used horse trailer, and he’s gone to pick it up.”

Emma frowned. “You don’t have any horses.”

“Once we have a horse trailer, horses are the next step. I’ve missed riding so much. Ooh, you could learn to ride! I always wanted to teach you to ride a horse.”

Finding her mother’s enthusiasm and cheerfulness a little bit exhausting, Emma focused on her tea. “I’m seeing Archie again,” she said.

“Oh,” Snow responded. “About all the stuff we talked about on moving day?”

“Yeah. And, I don’t know, maybe other stuff.” Emma realized she was holding herself rigid, expecting some disaster to interrupt their conversation. A call from Regina saying they all needed to jump into action against some new villain. Grumpy bursting in, shouting that something terrible had happened. Consciously, she relaxed her shoulders and listened to the quiet, to the absence of disaster, for a few seconds. “I told Archie once, back when we were talking about my destiny, that if I wasn’t the Savior, I didn’t know who I’d be. I still don’t think I’ve answered that question.”

“You’re all kinds of things, Emma. A daughter, a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend, the Sheriff—”

“All of those define me in relation to other people. It’s all true, but it’s not who _I_ am.” 

“I don’t know if I could define myself outside of my relationships to other people either, now that you put it that way. Are there people that can?” Snow asked with a laugh.

“I think _I_ used to be able to, and I honestly don’t know if that was better or worse. I’ll let you know if I figure it out.”

Snow smiled and blew over the top of her mug. “So how’s it going, you and Killian working together?”

“I mean, we’ve had a couple of rocky moments, but overall it’s good. And he’d probably disagree with me, but he’s really good at the job.”

“I’m so glad. And I’m glad you’re seeing Archie. If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”

Emma shrugged, suddenly hesitant and shy. “Just be my mom.”

Snow put her hand over Emma’s. “That’s all I ever want to be.”

The huff that came out of Emma’s own mouth surprised her. “Is it?”

“What do you mean?” Snow seemed as taken aback by Emma’s reaction as she herself was.

“The last few months, with the prophecy, and my magic going wonky… I don’t know. It seemed like you had a lot more time for Regina and her problems than you did for me and mine.” 

“Regina asked for my help, so I gave it. You had Killian, and I didn’t want to get all up in your business if you didn’t want me there,” Snow said, letting go of Emma’s hand, defensiveness in her posture and in every syllable she spoke.

Emma resisted the urge to roll her eyes, thinking of how her mother had no problem being up in her business when it was about happy things, like planning the wedding. “What made you think I wouldn’t want you there?”

Snow opened her mouth, and then closed it again, thinking for a few seconds. “I guess I thought you would tell me if you needed me.”

“Yes, because asking for help is totally a thing that I’m good at doing,” Emma said sarcastically. “Oh wait, no, it isn’t.”

“Emma…” Her mother looked like she was debating saying something. “You were angry with us for the choices we made, and rightly so. I know that if I spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you, trying to make up for the years we lost together, that I never will.” Her voice started to tremble, tears likely not far behind.

“Mom, that’s not—”

“Just let me finish. When the curse was first broken, I know that I pushed too hard. Tried too hard to mother you, pushed you toward Neal when he wasn’t what you wanted, pushed you to forgive us before you were ready to. So now, I try to give you space. I try to remember how independent you are.”

“I’m independent because I had to be. Because I grew up alone,” Emma said sharply. Her mother winced, and Emma felt like kicking herself. “I’m not saying that to make you feel guilty, I’m saying it because… I don’t know, maybe you _should_ push too hard sometimes.”

Snow looked down at the table, not saying anything for a several endless seconds. “It’s because it was our fault,” she almost whispered.

“What was?”

“We set you on the path to being the Savior, and if you died because of that, it would have been our fault, your dad’s and mine. Maybe I wasn’t there for you because I couldn’t… face that horrible truth.”

“Hey,” Emma said, taking her mother’s hand. “I lived.”

“Emma, I’m so sorry that you needed me these past few months and I wasn’t there for you.”

Emma shook her head. “Except you had your own stuff going on, with the sleeping curse, and you’re not wrong about me. Even though a part of me wanted to lean on you, I don’t know if I could’ve let myself do it. It was hard enough being vulnerable with Killian. I’m… gonna be working on this in therapy, I think.” She laughed a little bit. “Probably forever.”

“Maybe we need a hand signal, so that you can let me know if you want me to push?” Snow suggested, a half-smile on her face. 

“Maybe.” Emma took a sip of her luke-warm tea.

“Or you could text me a code,” Snow said.

“Just a whole line of those crying-face emojis,” Emma replied. “Or sirens?”

“No, then I’ll just glance at it and assume it’s from Grumpy.”

Emma threw her head back at that and laughed.

~*~

“Captain,” Blue said, greeting him at her convent office. “I have to admit, I was surprised to get your call.”

Even though she was a loyal ally of the Charmings, the Blue Fairy had always eyed him with a certain amount of distaste and suspicion, and she did so now. Killian met her eyes without hesitation. After all, the feeling was mutual. 

He took in the simple office walls that surrounded them, particularly the crucifix displayed prominently above the window. Emma had explained to him a bit about the Christian religion in this realm, and while he supposed he understood why the fairies had been transformed into nuns by the curse, he wondered at the fact that they still kept the trappings of that foreign religion around now that the curse was broken. Perhaps they had found some comfort in it.

“Please,” she said, gesturing to a chair as she moved to sit behind her desk. “Have a seat.”

“I’ll cut right to the chase,” he said, sitting down. The pirate in him wanted to prop a foot up on the fairy’s desk and lean back in his chair, but he resisted the impulse. “You’ve heard about the string of break-ins to local businesses these last few weeks?”

Blue shook her head, looking for all the world like she considered herself above such things. “I had not heard.”

He sighed in frustration. “Well, take my word for it, then.”

“What’s been taken?”

“Money mostly, but also small trinkets, the likes of which started me wondering if perhaps it isn’t an adult that we should be looking for, but a younger person. Perhaps a teenager, one who doesn’t have parents to look after him and set him on the proper path.”

Blue raised an eyebrow. “You think it could be one of the Lost Boys.”

“I think it’s possible. How many of them are still living at the orphanage?”

“Most. A couple of the younger ones were adopted by families here in Storybrooke, and the oldest few are grown men now, and have found employment and places to live here in town. The rest remain at the orphanage.”

Killian felt a sting of guilt at that. He’d carried them away from Neverland on his own ship, all that time ago. Having seen the state that Neverland was now in, he knew that the boys he had rescued were more fortunate than the ones who chose to stay behind on that cursed island, but it occurred to him that he could have done more for the boys in Storybrooke. He’d just dropped them off and hadn’t thought of them much since, too troubled by the upheavals in his own life.

Blue seemed to read his thoughts on his face. “You feel guilty,” she said.

“I brought them here and then I forgot about them.”

“I don’t know how much you could have done for them since then,” she said. “Especially while you were dead.”

“But—”

“And the support you’ve given to the Savior and to the Author has helped all of us, in the end. No one can begrudge the role you’ve served,” Blue said.

He was sure his surprise showed on his face. He didn’t think Blue thought much about him at all, and he assumed if she did, it was as a rogue. A blackguard. But clearly that wasn’t the case.

“I’d like to search the orphanage to see if there’s any sign of the missing money or of the other small items that were stolen,” he said.

Blue shook her head, impassive. “I can’t allow that.”

“The thieves could be among those boys, Mother Superior,” he said, addressing her by her title in this realm.

“If you have evidence of that, then I’m sure you can go to the courthouse to get a warrant to search the orphanage.” She folded her arms across her chest.

“I don’t have evidence; it’s a hunch.”

“Then I’m sorry.”

He clenched his fist in frustration, leaning forward. “I’m not particularly interested in punishing these lads, Blue. If one or more of them are stealing, then yes, I need to put a stop to it, and the business owners need to be compensated for their losses. But if you think my goal is to see them in jail, then you’re mistaken.”

She eyed him for several seconds, her gaze seeming to penetrate his soul. Finally, she nodded. “All right, I agree.” She looked up at a clock on the wall. “They’ll be summoned for dinner shortly. You can search their quarters then, but only under my supervision.”

“Of course.”

Blue led him across a small courtyard to a low dormitory building which she unlocked with a key from a ring at her waist. “This was originally just for the sisters,” she said. “But after the curse broke, not all the fairies chose to stay here. When you brought the Lost Boys from Neverland, this wing of vacant rooms was the most logical place to put them.”

The hallways were quiet, as indeed everyone seemed to be away.

Each room that she admitted Killian into contained two cots, two desks, and a small wardrobe. Some rooms were tidy, everything in its place, some were cluttered, much in the way that Henry’s room at their house was cluttered, with books stacked haphazardly and laundry scattered on the floor. Finally they came to a room that was messier than any of the others, despite the fact that only one of the beds seemed to have an occupant, as the other was only a bare mattress

“John Raymond’s room,” Blue said at his raised eyebrow. “No roommate. He’s been spoken to about the state of this room multiple times, to no avail.”

Killian began poking through the wardrobe. “How old is he?”

“Sixteen.”

There was a pile of dirty clothes at the bottom of the wardrobe, and Killian knelt down and dug through it, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the smell of unwashed boy. He almost laughed at himself. His olfactory senses had certainly gotten a lot more particular since he’d sailed the seas with a ship full of pirates and traveled to cities where human waste flowed ankle-deep in the gutters.

At the bottom of the pile of clothes, he found a small cardboard box, the very sort that often came to his own house with deliveries from that miraculous internet marketplace known as ‘Amazon.’ Inside the box, just as he feared, was a stack of cash. Killian wasn’t as quick at estimating quantities of the realm’s paper currency as he could a chest full of gold doubloons, but thumbing through it, he reckoned it could be close to a thousand dollars.

He looked up at Blue, who was looking back at him with a sad expression. “This doesn’t look good,” he said somewhat unnecessarily.

“What about the other things that were stolen. Trinkets, you said?”

Handing her the box, he stood up, his knees protesting. He went past the bed to the desk, opening the drawers. There was more clutter in these, but it didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for, shoved all the way in the back behind pens, pencils, unwrapped candies, and the usual sort of detritus one might find in a student’s desk: a misshapen piece of pottery, a little cartoon princess figurine with a keychain protruding from her blonde head, a translucent red glass wolf, and a dried rose. Killian placed them each on the chemistry book on top of the desk and turned to Blue.

“You need to bring him down to the station, I assume?” she asked, resigned.

“Let’s start with a chat in your office.” He glanced out the window to check the time, and pulled out his phone to call Emma when he saw he missed a text from her.

 ** _Going to the rabbit hole with regina and zelena_** , it said, followed by an emoji of a wide-eyed face. **_if I don’t come home by midnight assume we got arrested. Or no wait you’d be doing the arresting right?_** Followed by an emoji of a… he squinted at it. A person blowing a kiss, perhaps?

He sighed. Emma was taking a day off, and if that meant she was blowing off some steam going out drinking with two formerly evil sorceresses, then all the better. He wasn’t going to stop her, even if it resulted in his having to go down there and handcuff her later. Shoving that thought aside before it led anywhere lecherous, he put his phone away without calling his wife. Scooping up the evidence and pocketing it and then accepting the box of money from Blue, he followed her out of the room. 

On their way back across to the building that housed the Blue Fairy’s office, she stopped and asked one of the other sisters to bring the boy John to her office immediately. The sister scurried off, giving Killian a worried glance as she did so.

“I don’t know what he could be thinking,” Blue said, trotting to match his long stride. “I know that he’s had more than his share of troubles at school, but he’s never been in any trouble with the law. He’s always struck me as a mostly good kid.”

“No one spends significant time with Pan without a stain of darkness left behind on their heart,” he said, seating himself in the Mother Superior’s office when they arrived. He glanced up again at the crucifix on the wall, wondering if that Jesus fellow was the savior people claimed he was, or just another kind of trickster.

The boy who was brought before him had unkempt, light brown hair and was of below average height for a sixteen-year-old boy. His eyes darted around, first to the Mother Superior and then to Killian. Killian stood, gesturing to the chair he’d just vacated.

“Have a seat, lad.” The boy sat down on the edge of the chair, his face betraying nothing.

Killian picked up the box from the desk. “Do you know what this is?”

He could see swift calculations taking place behind the young man’s eyes. “Is it my money you stole from my room?” he asked, an edge of defiance in his voice.

Smiling, Killian sat on the edge of the desk. “And where did you come by this money, if it’s yours?”

“I earned it,” he said. “Doing small jobs for people.”

Killian reached into his jacket pocket and brought out the mementos, setting them on the polished desk one by one. “And these? Did you earn these?”

John’s eyes widened, and Killian could see beads of sweat on his upper lip. “So Captain Hook is gonna lecture me about stealing? That’s rich,” he said, lashing out from his cornered position.

“Given that I am Deputy Sheriff, that is precisely what I’m going to do,” he replied mildly. “What’s the money for, John?”

“What business is it of yours?” 

Killian could sense Blue starting to interject something, probably to try to diffuse the situation, but he held up his hand to stop her. “You can either answer my questions here in this comfortable office, or I can put you in jail for a night, and you can answer to Sheriff Swan in the morning.” He shuddered theatrically. “And she’s been cranky lately. Why, just the other day I saw her take a man down at forty paces with her magic, just for walking against the crosswalk.” Turning his head away from the boy and toward Blue, he winked.

“It costs a lot in this world to try to go anywhere,” John blurted out. “This land is huge, and they say no one will give a ride to a traveler walking along the roadside. So I figured out that I needed a bus ticket, but those cost money. And food, shelter… all of it costs so much money.” His shoulders slumped, defeated.

“Where do you need to go so badly, lad?” Killian asked him. 

The boy threw up his hands. “Anywhere but here! Somewhere where people don’t know the truth about Peter Pan. Where people won’t still be calling me a Lost Boy for my whole life. Nicholas got a job at the cannery, a respectable job and an apartment even, and still people shoot him looks everywhere he goes. They don’t trust any of us, because they know about Pan.” He looked down at the floor. “Also, somewhere warmer. I hate the snow.”

Killian felt keenly for this boy. He himself had married into the royal family, was the husband of the Savior herself, and still he knew there were people in Storybrooke who half-expected him to betray his wife at any moment. People who looked at his hook, and saw nothing but a dirty pirate.

“Why did you take these?” he asked, indicating the collection on Blue’s desk.

John shrugged. “I don’t know, I just liked them.” His eyes got a faraway look in them. “Kids in this realm have so many things, and I just wanted… I didn’t think anyone would miss them.”

Killian tossed him the dried rose bud. “You can keep this, but the others I’ll have to return. Along with the money, of course.”

“Aren’t you going to put me in jail?” John asked.

Killian regarded him carefully. “Actually, I have another idea.”


	7. Chapter 7

Killian held the small seashell to his lips. “Ariel? Ariel, can you hear me?”

Several seconds of silence passed, and then he could hear her chipper voice, speaking to him across the divide between realms. “Captain? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, love. I was wondering if I could ask a favor.”

“Sure, anything, but in exchange you have to give me the news from Storybrooke. How is everyone?”

He grimaced, glancing through the glass wall of Emma’s office at the chair in the main part of the sheriff’s station where John Raymond was sitting and fidgeting with his hands. He hadn’t locked the boy in one of the jail cells, but he had formally arrested him. Knowing some police procedures would have to be followed, Killian was preparing to dutifully take down the boy’s confession. He didn’t really have time to gossip with a mermaid.

“Everyone’s safe. Snow and Dave have bought a farm, Emma and I got married—”

Ariel’s resulting squeal made him hold the seashell at arm’s length. She began babbling congratulations and he smiled in spite of himself. It felt good to know that people were happy for him. 

“Ariel, love, I appreciate the congratulations, but I’m a bit short on time,” he finally said, interrupting her.

“Oops, sorry! What’s the favor you need?”

~*~

“The Rabbit Hole may be a shithole,” Emma said, “but it’s our shithole, and it’s not a front for any minions of the Black Fairy.”

Regina took a sip of her martini and glanced over her shoulder. “I think I’d allow for a little evil in here if we could get a sexy bartender like the one at Aesop’s Tables.”

“He wasn’t real, Regina, he was just Gideon in disguise!” Emma said. “Although yeah, he was nice to look at.”

“I didn’t even see him,” Zelena pouted. “Are we sure he wasn’t impersonating a real Storybrooke resident?”

“He wasn’t, I checked the town records,” Regina said. “What?” she added off of Emma’s glance. “If I can’t use my mayoral privilege to track down an attractive man, what’s it good for?”

“I keep telling you, this Tinder thing is the way to go,” Zelena said.

Emma almost spit out her bourbon. “Zelena, you’re on Tinder?”

“It’s amazing, Emma, you see someone you like and you just swipe the phone screen. You see someone you don’t like and you swipe the other way! It’s fabulous, you should try it.” 

“I’m married,” Emma replied. “You were there.”

“Oh, right.” Zelena shrugged and finished off the wine in her glass. “Whatever. I’ve met a few men, and I don’t mean losers from Storybrooke, I mean outsiders. Fresh blood. I keep trying to get Regina to try it—”

“I’m not getting on that ridiculous app.”

“—because she seriously needs to get some action, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Emma said.

“I mean sex,” Zelena added.

“We all know what you mean, Zelena,” Regina muttered. 

“Although sometimes men ask for ‘nude pics,’ but I do not oblige them,” Zelena said haughtily. “I don’t even _know_ them! Have you ever sent naughty pictures with your phone, Emma?”

“Nope,” Emma lied, wondering if there was enough alcohol in the world for this conversation.

“Come on, you and that hot pirate of yours never exchanged a risque photo or two on these marvelous devices?” Zelena said, holding up her own phone. Emma was starting to wonder if Zelena was trying to fill the void left by her magic with technology. There had certainly been a lot of adorable pictures of Robyn on Instagram lately.

“I only recently upgraded Killian to a smartphone,” Emma said, sidestepping the question of whether she’d sent him any photos that she wouldn’t want her parents to see. “He still just uses it to call people.”

“You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t crack the screen with that hook,” Regina commented, her finger running around the lip of her martini glass.

Zelena snickered at that, already well on her way through a third drink. “Oh, I bet he’s quite adept with his hook, right, Emma?”

Emma kept her face impassive. “Sure. He can hoist sails with it, dig small holes in the garden with it, carry coffee in it, all sorts of things.”

“That’s not what I meant, I _meant_ —”

“She knows what you meant, Zelena,” Regina said. “She’s avoiding answering you.”

Zelena put on a pout. “If we can’t exchange titillating stories with each other, what exactly is the purpose of this outing?”

Emma tossed back her bourbon and held up her hand for their waiter. “To get drunk, mostly.”

“You said on the phone that you had the day off today. Did you do anything good?” Regina asked.

Emma shrugged. “Slept until noon, went to a therapy appointment, and got in an argument with my mother.”

“You’re supposed to go to a spa, get a pedicure, screw your husband, something like that,” Zelena huffed. “That sounds like a waste of a day off.”

“I did screw my husband this morning if that makes you feel better,” Emma said.

“It does, thank you.”

“I’m relieved that Henry seems to be doing better,” Regina said, rather deliberately changing the subject. 

“Yeah, things have definitely improved,” Emma replied. “Although I worry that we’re micromanaging him too much. Sure, he does fine while we’re restricting his screen time and keeping an eye on his assignments, but is that really teaching him the skills he’ll need to be a functioning adult?”

Regina sighed. “I don’t disagree. We’ll certainly have to ease up on him next school year, and hopefully with things staying calm in Storybrooke, he’ll do better without our constant monitoring,” Regina said.

“Yeah,” Emma said, and then brought herself up short with a surprised jolt. “Wow.”

“What?” Zelena asked.

“Regina, you said things were gonna stay calm around here, and I just… believed you.”

“I mean, obviously I don’t know for sure, but—”

“I know, but maybe I’m starting to relax into the idea that there isn’t a villain around every corner, waiting to attack the people I love.” She took a sip of her fresh drink. “It’s progress, is what I’m saying.”

“Maybe you’re just drunk,” Zelena said.

“Maybe _you’re_ just drunk,” Emma countered.

“Maybe you’re both drunk,” Regina said with an arch of her eyebrow.

“My sister is a control freak,” Zelena stage-whispered. “That’s why she never lets herself drink to excess.”

Emma eyed Regina. “I think she’s got your number there.”

“Just because I’m not a fan of headaches and vomiting doesn’t make me a control freak,” Regina said evenly, but at the same time, she did tilt the rest of her martini into her mouth and then turned around to look for their waiter.

“My other question is,” Zelena said, and Emma struggled to remember what the first question was: the thing about the dirty pictures, or the thing about whether Killian used his hook for anything sexual? “When are you going to have a baby?” Zelena finished, propping her head on her fist and staring at Emma.

“I’m not.” 

“What, never? The pirate doesn’t want children?” Zelena asked.

Emma looked at Regina to see if she had a new subject of conversation ready to pull out and throw on the table, but she was looking at Emma with equal interest.

“We discussed it once, and neither of us is sure if it’s something we want. After Henry, I’ve always been pretty certain I didn’t want to have another baby.” Emma frowned, realizing she was telling Regina and Zelena something that she hadn’t discussed with anyone else other than Killian, not even her mother.

“I can understand why you would have felt that way, given the circumstances of his birth. But things have changed. _You’ve_ changed,” Regina said.

“You have to have a baby with that man, Emma. You’re both very attractive; you’d make a beautiful baby,” Zelena said.

Regina sighed heavily at her sister’s input. “You don’t _have_ to, obviously. Just make sure you’re making the decision based on who you are now, not who you used to be.”

Emma nodded. “That is really good advice, actually.”

“Well don’t sound so surprised,” Regina said. “I can give advice.”

“In any case, I’m not making any decisions about it for a while,” Emma said.

“I don’t know, you’re not getting any younger,” Zelena replied.

“You know, I can arrest you and throw you in jail, Zelena.”

The three of them continued to drink together, trading stories and light-hearted barbs. Zelena let Emma look through her Tinder account, and they giggled together over some of the pictures. Emma had to admit, she was having a really good time.

Suddenly the door to the bar opened and Grumpy burst in. “Sheriff, I heard you were here!” he shouted, ambling over. _How?_ Emma thought. “I figured you’d would want to know, the _Nautilus_ was sighted surfacing in the harbor about a half hour ago.”

She frowned. “Captain Nemo’s submarine?”

“That's the one. The one that took Hook out of this realm the last time it was here, as I remember it,” he added with a knowing glance.

Emma felt Regina bristle. “That was because of Gideon; it wasn’t Hook’s fault.” When it had come to light that Killian had not left Storybrooke of his own free will, Regina had been uncharacteristically apologetic to Emma for badmouthing him. It was obviously still a bit of a sore subject with her.

Grumpy held his hands up, shrugging. “Hey, I’m just the messenger.”

“Yes, you’re always the messenger,” Zelena snapped, glaring at him.

Emma reached for her purse. “I wanna get down there.”

“Emma, that man would rather cut off his other hand than leave you. There’s no reason to worry,” Regina said.

“I’m not worried about that,” Emma said, and she wasn’t, except deep down in her heart of hearts, the little girl who always believed everyone had abandoned her _was_ worried. “But if Nemo’s opened a portal to cross over to this realm, there’s gotta be a good reason for it, and it’s probably not good.” She felt her shoulders tense as cold dread dripped down her spine. _What now?_

~*~

Killian clasped Nemo’s hand firmly and smiled. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Nemo. I must admit, when I sent the message through to Ariel, I didn’t expect you to respond so quickly. And certainly didn’t expect to see the _Nautilus_ in Storybrooke’s harbor right away.”

“We’ve had an increase in kraken activity lately. It’s dangerous work to be sure, but it means we’ve got kraken blood enough for several trips between realms, should we need it.” He glanced back at the submarine, where his crew was disembarking. “After so many long hours repairing the _Nautilus_ and then several run-ins with kraken, the mermaid’s message provided the excuse I needed to give my men a couple of days of shore leave. And I must admit, when word traveled around all of the realms that the Final Battle had been fought and won, I wanted to see for myself that you and your family were safe.”

Liam joined them on the docks, and Killian embraced his half-brother. “We are,” Killian said to Nemo. “Why don’t both of you come back to my house, and we can discuss why I called you.”

Killian had released John Raymond back to Blue, with the understanding that she would ensure he didn’t flee, and in exchange Killian would not force him to spend the night in jail. 

The men walked companionably down the sidewalk away from the harbor. “And how fares your lady Emma?” Nemo asked.

“She’s my wife now,” Killian said, a swell of pride in his chest at being able to share that news with Nemo and Liam.

Liam grinned at him. “Congratulations, Killian.”

“This is indeed excellent news,” Nemo added, and then chuckled. “Imagine, had I been able to tell the vengeful pirate that you once were that you would someday marry the Princess of Misthaven?”

“I would have laughed in your face, mate.”

Killian led them up his front steps, opening the door with a key and feeling another burst of pride that he could entertain these men he so cared for in this wonderful house that he shared with Emma. He flicked on the lights and gestured toward the living room. “Make yourself at home; I’ll just get us some drinks.”

“The boy Henry lives here with you as well?” Liam asked as Killian joined them with a bottle of his best rum and three heavy crystal glasses. 

“Sometimes. We share custody with Regina, the mother who raised him when Emma put him up for adoption. But he’s out on a date with his girlfriend at the moment, and Emma is out with Regina and her sister enjoying a bit of shore leave of her own, so to speak.” He poured the rum and glanced toward the dark fireplace. It was too warm a night for a fire, but he always preferred the firelight to that emitted by the electric lights.

“So tell us about this boy the mermaid said you need help with,” Nemo said, accepting his glass with a nod of thanks. 

Killian gave them the barest outline of the situation: that there were several orphan boys in town, and that he’d had to arrest one of them, John Raymond, for several robberies. 

“My gut tells me he’s a good lad. He just stole the money because he was desperate to change his situation, and the last thing he needs is to languish away several months of his remaining teenage years in jail. I’d much rather see him situated in a place where he can find purpose and hard work, and what came to mind immediately was a position on your crew. Assuming, once you interview him, that he meets with your approval, of course.” Killian said.

“Of course,” Nemo said. “I’ll speak to the boy in the morning, and if he’s anything like you say, I’m sure he’ll make a fine addition to the crew of the _Nautilus_. Provided he wants to go. I won’t take anyone on as an indentured servant.”

“And I would never suggest such a thing,” Killian said. “Indentured servitude is little better than slavery.” He darted a glance at Liam. He was still unaware of what their father had done to Killian and the elder Liam when they were boys. Killian had decided not to tell him, that his reasons for telling him would only be self-serving, an excuse for the murder that he later committed. If Liam had fond memories of their father, who was he to tarnish those in his own self-interest?

The door swung open and Emma half-stumbled through, Zelena and Regina close on her heels. 

“Oh, you’re here,” she said, stopping short and letting Zelena collide with her back. She looked from Killian to Nemo to Liam as the three men stood up. “I called you and you didn’t answer.”

Killian pulled out his phone and grimaced. “I had the sound off and I didn’t notice you called. I’m sorry, love. Liam, Nemo, you remember Emma, my wife.” He glanced at the two women who seemed to have followed Emma home for reasons he didn’t entirely understand. “And this is Regina and Zelena.”

“A pleasure,” Zelena simpered, offering her hand to first his brother and then to Captain Nemo. “If I’d known you were so handsome, Captain, I’d have made a point of meeting you earlier.”

Regina laughed and pulled her sister back as she seemed to be preparing to put herself even further into Captain Nemo’s personal space. “Okay, Sis. Now that we see Emma’s husband is all safe and sound, we can probably leave them be.”

Killian narrowed his eyes at the three of them. He was fairly certain even Regina was drunk, and that was a sight that he couldn’t recall ever seeing before. Emma flopped down on the sofa and kicked her shoes off. “Are you gonna be okay getting her home?” she asked Regina. Zelena had started to list to one side like a ship that had taken cannonfire.

Regina wrinkled her nose. “I think I can poof us to Zelena’s house so that we can send Robyn’s sitter home. I might just stay there tonight.”

“Are you sober enough to do magic? I’d probably teleport myself inside a tree by accident,” Emma said.

Regina rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. Call me later if you need to.” She flicked her wrist and she and Zelena disappeared in a puff of purple smoke. 

Emma put her feet up on the coffee table. “So, what brings the _Nautilus_ back to Storybrooke?” she asked.

“Killian summoned us here—” Liam started to say.

“I haven’t had a chance to fill Emma in on everything that’s transpired today,” Killian interrupted quickly. 

“Oh?” She looked at him with suspicion. “Do tell.”

“We’d best be getting back to the ship for the night,” Nemo said smoothly. “Emma, it was lovely to see you again, and congratulations on your nuptials. Killian, I’ll see you in the morning for the interview?”

“Aye.” He escorted them to the door, waving goodbye as they turned and went down the front steps and off into the night. He quietly closed the door behind them.

“What the hell is he talking about, interview? Are you applying for a new job?” Emma asked. Her cheeks were flushed, and he couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

“Of course not, darling,” he replied, going over to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. “It’s an interview for someone else.”

“Why did you summon Nemo?” 

He handed her the water and then sat down next to her on the sofa. “Let me back up a bit. First of all, I caught our thief.”

Emma sat forward suddenly, water sloshing out of her glass and onto her jeans. “Who? How? When?”

Killian smiled. “Which of those would you like me to answer first? This afternoon, and I had a hunch, so I paid a visit to the Blue Fairy.”

It was clear that Emma’s alcohol-fueled brain was moving slower than usual. “I don’t think Blue robbed a bunch of stores.”

“Not Blue, but one of the orphans she oversees. One of the Lost Boys — a lad by the name of John Raymond.” He winced. The fate of those boys still wasn’t sitting easily with him.

“Why didn’t you call me?” Emma asked.

“Because you needed your rest, and I was determined not to disturb you, my love.”

She continued to scowl. “So you arrested him?”

“Aye, and I filled out a report just as you showed me,” he said. “But I have released him back into Blue’s care for the moment.”

“Why? Technically he can’t be released until there’s a hearing and someone posts bail for him.” she said.

“I know, but I thought we might make an exception in this case.” He stood up, needing to pace around their living room as he explained. “I’ve spoken to the boy, and I think becoming a part of Nemo’s crew would be a fine thing for him. You should have seen the way his eyes lit up as soon as I suggested it.”

Emma set her water glass down with a thunk, and Killian felt his hand twitch as he fought the instinct to put a coaster under it. “Killian, you can’t just decide to send a criminal off on a submarine because it feels like the right thing to do.”

“Love, it’s not as if Storybrooke is exactly a model of proper police procedure. If it were, most of us would be incarcerated. Myself and your two drinking buddies included. _And_ your mother.”

Emma brow wrinkled. “Okay, fine, but you need to at least consult me first.”

He lowered his head. “Aye. Things happened faster than I anticipated, and I apologize for not keeping you appraised of the situation.” He sighed. “I just wanted you to be able to relax for once.”

“Well… I mean, thanks for that.” She picked up her water again and drank from it. 

He eyed her, trying decide if she was still angry with him. “Shall we turn in?”

“Okay.”

Killian watched Emma as he locked up the downstairs and turned off the lights, noticing her fumbling with a bottle of headache pills in the kitchen and swallowing them with the rest of her water. He followed her upstairs, changing slowly into his pajamas to the sound of her washing her face and brushing her teeth in the bathroom. He set his brace down in its accustomed place on his clothes dresser, rubbing his hand over the stump at the end of his left wrist, feeling the familiar ache and tingle of damaged nerves under the scar tissue. 

Killian heard the front door downstairs open, and the unmistakable sound of Henry loping up the stairs. Opening the bedroom door, he watched as Henry rounded the corner to his room down the hall. 

“How was your date?” Killian called out.

“Fine.” Henry said, not breaking his stride. 

“Did you lock the front door?”

“Yeah,” Henry said, already closing his own door. The lad had his own inner life, his own relationships, and he and Emma were privy to less and less of it. 

When they settled into bed and turned off the lights, Killian held himself separate, wondering what Emma was thinking and a little afraid to ask. He remembered David telling him once, not long after he and Emma had moved in together, _‘Never go to bed angry.’_

“Are you angry with me?” he asked into the quiet bedroom.

“Not really,” she said. After a long pause, she added. “You should probably be angry with _me_.”

“What on earth for?”

He listened to her blow out a long breath. “When I heard the _Nautilus_ was here, there was this little voice inside telling me that you were leaving.”

Killian turned on his side, horrified. “Emma, I would _never_ —”

“I know, I know, I didn’t say it was a logical thought or anything, it just came from that… that place inside where I’m always terrified people are gonna abandon me. I know it’s stupid.” He felt her hand reach out against his arm in the dark, and he took it in his. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize for that, darling.” He pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed the back of it. “I’ll just continually remind you of how completely and hopelessly in love with you I am until that little voice stops pestering you.”

“Okay,” she said softly. He kissed her hand again, turning it over and pressing his lips to her palm, and then her wrist. “What made you want to help that kid?” Emma asked. 

“He reminded me of myself, I think. When Liam died, I took to piracy because I wanted revenge on the corrupt king who caused his death, but it was more than that. When the people in charge of a society have betrayed you, then it feels like there’s no reason to adhere to the rules of that society.”

“And Storybrooke has failed him?”

“It’s not that I think the fairies haven’t taken good care of those boys: housed them, fed them, tended to their illnesses. But I think they need something more.” He swallowed. “I’d like to do something more for them, I think.”

Emma brought her hand up and patted his cheek. “You’re such a good guy.”

“Shh, don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation as a rapscallion to protect.”

Chuckling, Emma burrowed into his chest, her fingers brushing through his chest hair. Killian wrapped his arm around her, holding her close.

“I’m gonna be seeing Archie every week for a while,” she said after a long silence, during which he had started to drift off to sleep.

“Oh? That’s good.”

“And maybe also taking medication,” she said, and he felt her tense up. “To help with how I’ve been feeling.”

“This realm is a marvel. There’s a pill for everything.” He stroked her hair, pressing his lips against the top of her head. “Did you expect me to disapprove?”

“Says the guy who won’t take aspirin for a headache.”

“I’m just not in the habit of it, that’s all. I had nothing but rum to dull the pain of losing my hand, but that doesn’t mean I think you should suffer unnecessarily. If there are medicines that help with the things going on in your head, far be it from me to suggest that you shouldn’t avail yourself of them,” he said.

Emma closed her hand over his scarred wrist, and he could feel a shiver run through her. “I can’t imagine the pain you must’ve gone through.” He felt her fingers press into his skin, as if she could reach back through time with her magic and spare him that agony.

“I hardly remember it now, darling; don’t fret.”

“You’re lying,” she whispered, kissing the end of his wrist.

Killian sighed. “I rarely think of it anymore, then. Not when I have so much happiness in my life.”

“Okay.” She snuggled in close to him again.

“Am I telling the truth?”

“Yes.” She wiggled a bit, freeing one of her arms to wrap around him. “You know, this depression thing, it’s not because you don’t make me happy. You do.”

“I know, my love.” His lips brushed the top of her head again, and he closed his eyes. “I know.”


	8. Chapter 8

It was a warm day, the breeze off of the harbor keeping it from being uncomfortably so. Killian stood on the dock and squinted against the reflection of the sun on the water, his hand on John Raymond’s shoulder. “Are you absolutely certain this is what you want? I’m not forcing you to go; I want to make sure you understand that.”

John raised an eyebrow at him. “It was your idea.”

“Aye, but it’s still your choice.” He looked out at the submarine in the harbor, abuzz with activity as sailors loaded supplies onto it. Storybrooke’s grocers would certainly be pleased with the influx of gold, especially given how much gold was worth in this realm. Killian himself was worth a small fortune.

“I want to go. Captain Nemo… I don’t know, there’s something about him that makes me feel like I could be a better person, like him. _For_ him,” John said.

Killian nodded. “The best captains lead by inspiring their crew to be their best. Not through fear, as I once did.”

John looked up, scrutinizing him, but didn’t respond to that.

“Are you nervous?” Killian asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

There was rising cacophony of voices behind them. Killian and John turned, and Killian saw that Blue had brought all of the Lost Boys down to the dock to say their goodbyes. Shyly, John walked over to them, standing a little bit apart as he spoke to them. Killian couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he recognized the body language of boys who didn’t know how to express the affection and loss that they were feeling.

“Take good care of this place, brother,” Liam said as he approached. “I hope to find things just as peaceful when next we visit.”

Killian smiled and patted Liam’s back awkwardly. “I intend to. You take good care of the _Nautilus_. And your captain.”

“Perhaps the next time we come into port here, I’ll find that I'm an uncle,” Liam said with a sly grin.

“Oh, that’s not…” Killian trailed off, his heartbeat accelerating at the thought. “I don’t know if fatherhood is in the cards for me. Other than Henry, of course.”

Liam just eyed him with a raised eyebrow. “We’ll see.”

“You know if you ever decide to stop traveling, my home is yours for as long as you need a place to rest your head,” Killian said.

“I appreciate that,” Liam said. “But this land is strange, and I’m not sure if I could ever be comfortable here.”

“I thought that once.” Killian looked out over the water. “The foods, the smells, the clothing, the vast array of technology -- I didn’t want any of it.”

“But you fell in love with a woman, and...”

Killian chuckled. “Aye.” It occurred to him that he was a bit like the mermaid Ariel in that way, giving up his entire way of life to be with his true love.

John was shuffling back over from the gaggle of Lost Boys as Captain Nemo approached them. “We are nearly ready to cast off.” He pulled himself up ramrod straight and spoke to John. “Seaman Raymond, my first mate here will assign you to your billet.”

John stood equally straight, bringing his hand up in a somewhat clumsy salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.” He shouldered his duffel bag and waited for Liam.

“Until we meet again, brother,” Liam said, embracing Killian. 

“Until then,” Killian said, a lump forming in his throat. Liam turned and walked quickly toward the submarine, and John hurried after him, sparing a quick wave for the boys watching him leave from further up the dock.

“I have high hopes for that one,” Nemo said. “Killian, thank you for your hospitality these last few days. I hope we see you again before too much time has passed.”

“I’ll think of you often.”

“And I, you,” Nemo said, also giving him a warm hug. “You and your lovely family.”

“Be well, my friend.” With a final wave, Nemo boarded his vessel. Killian watched as the _Nautilus_ submerged, and he thought he could just make out the light of the portal opening underwater before it disappeared from this realm.

He turned toward the other Lost Boys, and called out before Blue could shepherd them away.

“One moment, boys!”

They turned, some of them whispering to each other and mistrustful looks on not a few faces. He was still Captain Hook to them, and their former antagonism was not entirely forgotten.

He approached them, stopping a respectful distance away, and clasped his hook in his hand behind his back. “You all remember my ship, the _Jolly Roger_ , the vessel that brought you to this land. She stands idle in the harbor too often these days, and I fear if left to me alone, she may begin to fall into disrepair. So I’ve decided she needs a new crew, a crew of able-bodied young men.”

He met each of their eyes in turn. “I’ll be offering lessons in sailing to any who are interested, a couple of evenings a week and on Sundays. I can’t say there won’t be hard work, because maintaining a ship requires labor. But you’ll also learn everything there is to know about sailing the finest ship in all the realms.”

Killian looked up at Blue, and she smiled, giving him a nod of respect.

“Now,” he said, “let’s see a show of hands. Who’s with me?”

~*~

A knock sounded on the door of the captain’s quarters. “Come in,” Killian called, looking up from the map spread out over his table.

Henry walked in, a clipboard in hand. He could see Henry making minute adjustments to his posture as the ship rocked under them, cutting its way through the bay a few miles off Storybrooke’s shore. The lad had always been a natural on the water, as if he was destined to be Killian’s stepson.

“Ah, my first mate,” Killian said, grinning. “What’s the report?” Killian certainly enjoyed working directly with the Lost Boys, teaching them everything he knew about sailing, but he enjoyed watching Henry blossom into a leadership role almost as much, so on some of their Sunday outings, he gave Henry free reign to manage the boys above deck while Killian kept his distance, demonstrating by way of his absence that he trusted Henry to be in command of the ship.

“Sawyer and Okeke are on deck-swabbing duty this week. Okeke is working hard, but I’ve caught Sawyer leaning against the gunwale three times so far.” Henry consulted his clipboard. “Still no one can match Frederickson’s speed climbing up to the crow’s nest. That kid is like a monkey.”

“How about their knots?”

“At least half of them still need help getting them right.”

Killian nodded. “That was my thought as well. I’ll set aside some time Tuesday. Who’s at the helm?”

“Zhang. I’ll go back up and check on him in a few minutes, but he seems fine.”

“He’s a natural leader, like you,” Killian said, and Henry blushed with pride. 

“There are definitely a few of the boys who aren’t interested in doing this once your initial lessons are over. Not just Sawyer,” Henry said. “I mean, I think it’s been good for all of them, but some want to stick with it and some don’t.”

“Aye, not everyone is cut out for a sailor’s life.”

Henry scratched the back of his head. “I was talking to Violet about it the other day, and some of her girlfriends want to learn to sail if you’re going to keep doing this.”

Killian raised his eyebrows in surprise; not because they were girls, but simply that more kids, especially those who had grown up under the first curse and probably could have spent their time playing video games or chatsnapping or whatever it was teenagers did in this realm, would want to learn what he had to teach. “Emma and I are leaving on our trip very soon, as you know, and by the time we get back the summer will be nearly over. But I could probably fit several weeks of lessons in before the weather turns too cold, if there’s enough interest.”

“Yeah, I think there is,” Henry said as he sat down in the other chair across from Killian. “Hey, about your Caribbean trip, I think a few of the younger kids maybe still don’t understand that you’re not taking a crew of Lost Boys with you.” 

“I’ve explained to them that the _Jolly Roger_ is enchanted. While she can certainly sail with a full crew, it isn’t required,” he said, his brow wrinkling.

“I know, but they’ve imprinted on you like ducklings.” Henry blushed. “Also I don’t think they have a clear concept of what a honeymoon entails.”

“You mean…”

“Yeah,” Henry said, flushing a darker shade of pink. “I mean, who was gonna teach them about sex, Peter Pan? Or the fairies?”

Killian blinked. “They were in the fairies’ charge, I just assumed they would educate them about such things.”

“They’re fairies,” Henry said, shrugging. “Do they even do… _that_?”

Killian’s mind went immediately to Tinkerbell, and he quickly clamped down on that distant memory and shoved it deep, hoping Henry wouldn’t see any sign of it on his face. “What are you suggesting, Henry, that _I_ …”

“You’re the only father figure they have.” 

“Bloody hell.” He ran his hand over his face and stood up. “All right, I’ll give it some thought.”

He climbed the stairs to the deck, the wind tousling his hair as soon as he breached the surface. Henry followed on his heels and as he made the rounds, inspecting the cleanliness of the ship and offering suggestions or encouragement to the boys who were manning the sail lines. 

“Order Zhang to bring her about and make for home,” he told Henry.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Henry said, trotting up the stairs to the helm. Killian watched him, pride filling his chest. He kept thinking he couldn’t be more proud of his stepson, and Henry kept proving him wrong. 

Killian took over command as they neared the dock, instructing the boys again in the proper way to bring the ship in carefully, several of them jumping over to the boardwalk as soon as they were close enough and pulling the lines taut. Henry inspected their knots, correcting the ones that were tied wrong and going through the process again slowly with them. A natural sailor and a natural teacher, Killian thought, watching Henry out of the corner of his eye as Killian helped another set of boys secure the sails.

The gangplank was lowered and the rest of the boys poured off the ship, calling out their goodbyes as they ran down the boardwalk. Killian disembarked more slowly, pulling his phone out and checking it for any missed messages from Emma. He had just enough time to stop by and pick up some take-out from Granny’s, he thought, and was so focused on the evening ahead that he almost collided with Belle on the dock.

“Belle!” he said. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you.” She had Gideon strapped to her chest in some kind of baby-carrying contraption, and the boy had half his fist wedged in his mouth, drool covering his hand. He’d seen Belle in town from a distance a few times over the past several weeks, and every time he’d avoided her gaze, uncertain of how to bridge the chasm between them. Now she was here, right in front of him, and it sent his heart hammering as he remembered the hurtful things they’d said to each other in her kitchen.

“It’s okay.” She shifted from foot to foot, her hand absently caressing Gideon’s head. “I asked around, and they said you usually get back from your Sunday sail around now, so…” She trailed off and cleared her throat. “I wanted to apologize for what happened between us. I’m sorry.”

“Love, it wasn’t your fault. I had no right to come into your home and imply that you’d made the wrong decision.” He winced, because he still felt she had made the wrong decision, but he wasn’t going to say that. “It was ungentlemanly.”

She laughed, perhaps thinking that him shooting her all those years ago was also ungentlemanly. He’d hurt her more than once back then, when his quest for revenge against her now-husband blinded him to everything else. He’d sworn to make it up to her, and all he’d done in the end was hurt her because of her husband again. “It’s okay,” she said. “I forgive you.”

“I very much miss our friendship,” he said. Belle and he had gotten particularly close after she had banished Rumple over the town line, when he was falling in love with Emma and struggling to be a better man for her. She had consoled him when Emma had been the Dark One, and probably had kept him from drinking Storybrooke dry of rum on more than one occasion during that terrible time.

“I miss our friendship too, that’s why I came down here,” Belle responded. “Even though I know you still think I was wrong to go back to Rumple.”

He scratched behind his ear, unable to lie to her. “You know my mind when it comes to your husband, and it’s unlikely to change.” 

“Can we agree to disagree?” she said, and he could see the sheen of tears in her eyes. “I promise that if anything bad ever happens, I’ll take you up on your offer and I’ll come to you for help. And you promise not to say anything against Rumple in my presence. Or around Gideon, as he grows up.”

“I promise,” Killian said, looking at the innocent babe. All other things aside, he was happy that Belle had the chance to raise her child properly. Too many children he knew had grown up without their parents, and Gideon was lucky indeed to have a mother as loving as Belle was. “He’s growing like a weed. And quite the handsome fellow.”

“He is,” she gushed. “I’m getting pretty strong, carrying him around all the time.”

“I was just going to pick up food from Granny’s to take home; would you like to join us for dinner?”

She grinned. “I’d love to.”

~*~

Emma giggled, her foot slipping in the sand, and she grabbed Killian’s hook to stay upright.

He eyed her with mock disapproval. “You’re drunk and it’s barely past noon, love. What am I going to do with such a tosspot for a wife?”

“I’m not drunk, but that rum punch was surprisingly strong, and I probably definitely should not have had two of them.”

They were walking back to the little oceanfront bungalow they had rented. The only restaurant within walking distance was a dive bar with a tiny menu of whatever seafood the proprietors had managed to pull out of the ocean, and an assortment of rum and rum cocktails that had made Killian’s eyes widen in wonderment. The beach they’d chosen was far from a popular destination, as most tourists these days had decamped to the all-inclusive resorts, but that was exactly what made Emma and Killian love it. No one looked askance at man with a hook for a hand, or asked where they were from with more than brief, passing interest.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, darling,” he said with a more serious inflection in his voice.

She looked at him, resisting the temptation to sink her fingers into all of the chest hair he had on display under the shirt that hung, unbuttoned, on his lithe frame. “I really am.” She bumped her hip against his. “Thanks for being patient with me.”

“Always.”

The wrap that Emma had secured around her bikini flapped against her legs in the ocean breeze, and she tipped her face up to the sunshine as they walked, the brim of her sunhat shielding her eyes from the bright light. The heat had her debating another dip in the ocean, but when Killian pulled her by the hand toward their rooms, she followed. They rinsed the sand off with the outdoor shower, Emma yelping as the cold water hit her legs.

As soon as they entered the bedroom, Emma pushed Killian down on the tousled sheets. “Clothes off,” she said, untying her floral wrap and tossing it aside. She left her bikini on, figuring it would torture him more if she didn’t undress completely. He detached his hook and set it aside before doing as she asked with his unbuttoned shirt, followed by his swim trunks. Before he could begin to unfasten the buckles that secured his brace, Emma pounced, pressing him back onto the bed. She held his forearms down with her small hands, her mouth dragging across his chest. She grazed his nipple with her teeth, and Killian hissed and arched off the mattress.

“Shhh, be still,” she said, her lips pulling back into a smile as she inched down the bed. His abdomen was firm and well-muscled under her mouth, and Emma licked the sea salt from his skin as she dragged her hands down to his waist. She felt his erection brushing against her breasts, could sense his impatience in the trembling of his stomach muscles under her tongue.

His cock was smooth and rigid when she finally closed her lips around it, and she was gratified by the groan from her husband as she pulled off and swirled her tongue around the head. Killian’s fingers threaded into her hair gently, a slight press of his fingers guiding the pace she set. She sucked him harder, took him deeper, bringing one hand up to grip the base of his cock to keep him from choking her as Killian began to lose control and let his hips flex upwards. She loved everything about doing this for him, the sensation of him getting harder in her mouth, the way his fist clenched in her hair, the way she could sometimes look up and see him watching her, watching the way his cock disappeared into her mouth. Other times she would just see the straining cords of his neck as he threw his head back in ecstasy. 

“Fuck, Swan, that’s… gods, I’m gonna come.”

She hummed with approval, not letting up until his hips jerked, Killian groaning as his orgasm hit. She gradually slowed, pulling off when he relaxed and swallowing the salty tang in the back of her throat. 

Emma rose up on her knees, watching him as he recovered his breathing, lying there, completely wrecked by what she’d done to him. It turned her on almost as much as his touch did. 

Killian opened his eyes and looked down at her. “Take that swimming costume off and get up here,” he rasped.

Reaching behind her back, she untied the bows and let the top part of her bikini drop. She hooked her thumbs in the bottom and slowly dragged it down her legs, kicking it off. Crawling up the bed, she started to lie down at his side, but Killian stopped her. 

“No, up here, love. Bring your delicious quim up here where I can taste it,” he said.

She indicated the bedside table where he’d dropped his hook earlier. “Put your hook back on and I will.”

He gave her a slowly unfurling grin and did as she asked, the click of it locking into the brace echoing somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

Feeling very exposed in the bright sunlit room and still a little bit day-drunk, Emma gingerly slung one of her legs over to the other side of Killian’s head and positioned herself over his face. The headboard of the bed was a smooth piece of wood anchored to the wall, very unlike the sturdy bars in their own bedroom that she could grip to keep herself steady. Pressing her hands against the wall, she splayed her knees and slowly lowered herself down to his mouth.

“Relax, darling.” She felt his hand grip her ass and his hook press into the back of her thigh, which sent a shudder through her body. “I’ve got you; you won’t suffocate me.” He winked. “Or if you do, I can’t imagine a better way to die.”

“Jokes about you dying still aren’t funny,” she said, smiling in spite of herself.

He chuckled and pulled her down to his mouth, opening wide and devouring her, everything wet and sparking with pleasure as he licked into her. Emma moved her hips in a slow roll as his tongue traced over her, shutting out everything but the sensations he was creating. She stopped worrying about whether she was smothering him or about her body at all, she just floated and let the feelings build as he expertly worked her up. Her world narrowed to his tongue and lips on her sex, the smooth metal of his hook against her leg and his fingers pressing into the flesh of her ass. She was so open to him, so wet and open and everything was radiating ecstasy out from that tiny nub of flesh where he was focusing his attention, more and more and more until it exploded and Emma cried out.

She dropped her head against the wall, panting, while Killian slid out from under her and guided her to lie down at his side, aftershocks making her twitch slightly as she relaxed. She felt like a popped bottle of champagne, fizzing away into the open air of the humid bedroom. 

“You know what I sometimes think about?” Emma said after an unknown length of time, stretching her legs out on the white sheet. The top sheet and blanket had ended up mostly on the floor, but it was warm in the room and she was happy to just lie there, completely naked and exposed. Despite their best efforts, she could feel the grit of sand against her skin, and she made a mental note to see if she could wrangle them some fresh sheets before nightfall.

“Hmm? What’s that, love?” Killian lay on his back at her side, the breeze from the open windows ruffling his hair. His eyes remained closed.

“I wonder what an earlier version of me would have thought if I could see us now.” She held her hand up in front of her face and looked at the wedding and engagement rings that adorned her finger. 

“An earlier version of you?”

“Yeah.” She rolled onto her side to look at her husband. “Like, if we fell through that time portal and ended up here instead of thirty years in the past in the Enchanted Forest.”

He snorted. “I suppose we’d think, ‘Gods, look at how bloody naked we are.’”

Emma reached over and smacked his shoulder. “I don’t literally mean here and now, I just mean generally now _ish_.”

“Are you asking, what would past us think about the fact that we are husband and wife?” He rolled over and faced her. “If you’re talking specifically about the version of me that fell through that time portal, I’d have been thrilled. After all, I was already madly in love with you by then. You, however, would have probably run for the hills.”

“I wasn’t _that_ bad.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Okay, maybe I was, but secretly I would have been a little bit thrilled. I was totally into you then, I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.”

“There’s a more interesting thought experiment to be had here, Swan. Imagine us…” He thought for a few seconds, and then his eyes lit up. “Imagine us swordfighting at the shore of Lake Nostos. I’m the pirate scoundrel in league with Cora, out to steal your passage home to this world, you’re the annoyingly righteous daughter of Snow White keeping me from my revenge. Then suddenly, bang, we get transported to a rooftop in Storybrooke, and see our future selves saying matrimonial vows to each other. What would past Emma make of that?”

“Past Emma would assume she was under some kind of magical spell and was being forced to get married. And I don’t even mean because it’s you; just getting married _at all_ was something I assumed I’d never do.” She reached out and put her hand on his bare chest, over his heart, and moved a little closer, brushing her foot against his. “What about Past Hook?”

He raised his eyebrows and sighed. “I don’t know; much the same, I suppose. I certainly didn’t think I would ever marry, not since Milah. But as to it being you, Swan… I don’t think I would have hated that, even then.”

“But I’m annoyingly righteous, remember? Plus, I left you chained at the top of a beanstalk.”

“But you’re also very clever, and stunningly beautiful, and once I met you, you plagued my thoughts often.” He pulled her close, kissing her. “I’d like to think that secretly, I’d have been a little bit thrilled.”

She chuckled at his use of her own words, kissing him back and hitching her leg up on his hip. It had probably only been a half hour since he’d orgasmed, but she could feel his cock stirring to life. 

“And if those versions of us -- the Lake Nostos versions -- did see us right here, right now?” she said, brushing her breasts against his chest as they started to rock against each other. “If they were standing right here in this room, watching us?”

Killian rolled them so that she was underneath him, caging her in with his arms as she opened her legs and bracketed his hips with her thighs. A handful of thrusts against her and he was fully erect, and without missing a beat he shifted and thrust inside, sinking all the way to the hilt easily. They both groaned softly at the sensation.

“I’d be rather impressed with myself for bedding such a gorgeous creature,” he murmured, mouth brushing against hers as he spoke. He started a slow rhythm, long strokes in and out, grinding against her at the apex of every thrust. 

“That’s it?” she panted, pleasure starting to build again, a gradual burn that made it difficult to remember what they were even talking about. “That’s all you’d care about?”

He smirked at her, and it was a little infuriating that he could look at her like that in the midst of what their bodies were doing. “What about you, love?”

Killian’s hips snapped forward more forcefully and Emma’s eyes rolled back at how good it felt. “I’d… oh god… probably just stand there and stare at your ass.” She reached down and clutched it with her fingers, feeling the way his muscles worked under her hands. “I bet it looks fantastic while you’re fucking me.”

“Hmm, that’s true, you’re getting the much better end of the bargain. Past me can barely see you.” He slid his hand and hook underneath her back and rolled, impressively staying inside her during the maneuver. “Sit up, love, and let past me get a look at what a goddess you are when you ride me.”

Emma took a second to muse that this was the weirdest roleplay she’d ever participated in, but it was strangely hot, imagining their past selves faced with the fact that in the future, they’d be fucking regularly. And would be really excellent at it. She pulled her knees forward and sat up on her heels, undulating her hips and leaning back, letting her long hair trail down until Killian could probably feel it brushing his thighs. He took her left hand in his right, and she could feel the now-familiar click of their wedding rings making contact. She jumped when she felt the cold metal of his hook press intimately against her, and she lifted her head and looked down at the curve of it nestled between her legs, pressing accurately against her clit.

“What would past Emma think of the way you love my hook touching you?” he asked, his hips thrusting up from below, and she could barely speak, could feel herself getting close, and she swallowed on a dry throat. 

“She’d… think it was kinky.”

“And would she secretly want it for herself?”

Emma thought about the way she’d watched him that day as they had climbed the beanstalk and made their way around the giant’s castle. How when she’d saved him from the tripwire, she felt his hook raking across her back as she pulled out of his arms. 

“Maybe a little,” she admitted, gasping at the drag of him inside her. 

“Are you close, darling?” All she could do was nod, lost to the sensation of his cock moving within her and his hook against her wet, sensitive flesh. She continued to rock back and forth until the feeling burst outward, filling her with overwhelming heat and pleasure and she moaned long and loud, barely aware of Killian’s fingers clutching her hip as he thrust up into her at a quicker pace. She opened her eyes just in time to see his own climax hit him, his teeth clenching and voice straining. 

When enough feeling returned to her limbs that she could move them, Emma clumsily collapsed onto the bed beside her husband, ignoring the mess for the moment as her breathing gradually slowed. She was hot and sticky with sweat, but when Killian turned and pulled her into his arms, she allowed it.

“Let’s take a nap and then go for a swim,” she said. She felt boneless, like she could just melt into the bed and stay there forever.

“All right.”

“You never really said what past you would think, seeing us together like this,” she said, eyes slipping closed. 

“Past me would think there’s no possible way I could be worthy of such a woman,” he breathed into her neck as they held each other. “I’d think she must have made a terrible mistake, marrying me, and that it would only be a matter of time before she saw the error of her ways and cut me loose.”

Emma combed her fingers through his damp hair. “And now? What do you think now?”

Killian pulled away and met her eyes. “I think we both need each other. I think we’ve worked hard to make this relationship work, and that we deserve happiness. I think there’s no one better suited than you to be my wife, but that also perhaps there’s no one better suited than me to be your husband.”

“Perhaps?” she teased, bumping her nose against his.

“Definitely no one better.”

“That’s right.” They continued to hold each other, the breeze cooling their sweaty skin. “When do we have to go back to Storybrooke?”

“About four more days. Five, maybe, if it looks like the winds are going to be with us.” Killian rolled onto his back, pulling Emma with him. She rested her head on his chest, her fingers combing through the hair on his chest. “Are you dreading it, love?”

She thought about it. “I mean, I won’t lie, spending my days swimming in the ocean, having sex, and sleeping is pretty awesome, but I wouldn’t say I’m dreading it. My real life is pretty good too.” She tilted her head to look up at him. “Every day I’m happy, and every day I’m less and less surprised about that.”

He stroked her cheek gently. “I’m glad.”

_END_


End file.
